THE MAN WITH THE WATERING CAN.
SOCIALIST PARTY’S LAND POLICY. (To The Editor). Sir,—When a 730 b tic a 1 party finds il necessary t.o explain away its own platform 011 such an important question as land it. is in a bad way. That, is what the Socialist Labour Party is now engaged in doing, through its leader, Mr H. E. Holland, M.P. Wide-spread exception has been taken to these three clauses in the platform:— (a) A State valuation of all privately owned land, such valuation to remain on record as the measure of present, landlord’s interest in land. (b) That privately owned land shall not be sold or transferred except to the State. (e) The owner shall have the right to surrender his land on the valuation set out- in subsection (a). Mr Holland is at present, trying his best lo water down the extreme character of the pronouncement contained in these clauses. Speaking at Waipukurau, he said: “They did not propose to interfere with existing titles. When they said ‘the land should not be sold or transferred except to the State’ they did not mean that, private property could not be willed to the owner’s wife or ehildi'en.” At Auckland he said: “The Labour Party did not propose to interfere with existing titles, and it did not say that a property could not he handed down by will.” Whether the abrogation of a private owner’s present right to sett to other limn 11m State is an interference with the freehold title or not. wo. leave to ihe judgment of readers. Jt appears however, that when this party proposes that the owner shall not he allowed to transfer his properly except to Ihe State it does not mean what it says. The owner is to 1)0 allowed to transfer by will. Whether in ease of an owner being unable to work his estate he should be. free to transfer-it, whilst alive, to a relative who could, is not explained.
The watering down of this socialist formula, however, takes us tlips far that the words “except to.the State” do not mean to the State alone. ' The right of'- private trans-, fer will-still stand. Tf votes do not come in sufficiently to the party it is most likely that we shall have a later pronouncement that the right of private .-rn'o shall also stand. Truly the New Zealand electors must he very gullible if they fail to reaslise f that this special pleading of Mr Holland is oilier than camouflage of the essentially red character of his party’s platform. It is an opportunist political trick designed to catch popular favour bv endeavouring to make red appear white. Seeing that his party’s objective declares straight out for “the socialisation of the means of produc - tion, distribution and exchange” the concern shown for private ownership (in words) is the most glaring political sham. All holiest socialist party would say straight out that if stood for land nationalisation but an opportunist party does not so and leaves inferences to be drawn and eaves inferences to be drawn which it can repudiate if' inconvenient.
The fact is that Ibis party lms no practical land policy except what it has borrowed from Liberalism which il scorns, —We are, Yours etc,., - N.Z. WELFARE LEAGUE.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2639, 29 September 1923, Page 3
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547THE MAN WITH THE WATERING CAN. Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2639, 29 September 1923, Page 3
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