The New Zealand Times. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1917. THE ENDOWMENT LANDS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9795, 19 October 1917, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1917. THE ENDOWMENT LANDS

The most impertinent, arrogant, and improper petition ever presented to Parliament, is the petition of one "J. A. Schmidt and other Crown tenants, who desired "the option of converting national endowments and other leases into freeholds.” These lands are national property set aside for certain purposes, pensions for old age among them, as an endowment of growing value to help supply the needs not only of the present, but future generations. This national property was leased to those petitioning tenants for their use on certain terms, with full knowledge on both sides of the value of the endowment and its inviolable character. Yet these people demand the right to acquire the freehold. As they took their leases with their eyes open, their demand can only bo denounced as a demand to commit an act of rapine, a claim to tramplo on a scrap of paper, an aggression upon the rights of the whole community secured by general statute and confirmed in particular by tho terms of individual leases. A more scandalous breach of faith could not bo imagined. Unfortunately it is the fourth that has been proposed since the national endowments .wore made, and its three predecessors were successful, because political consideration was allowed to triumph over justice and public rights. These bad precedents these petitioners had tho audacity to quote in support of their aggression. Because the scrap of paper has been trampled on three times—at Mananui, Rangataua and Ohakune —everybody, they claim, must he allowed to tramplo. Tho dyke has been opened a little, therefore the flood of aggressive monopoly must be let loose. That was the case for the petitioners. They want to tear down the dyke.

Certain members are represented to have supported tbe petition in order to protect the improvements of the tenants who have acquired . the leases of this endowment property. The petitioners did not want security for improvements. They asked for the freehold. On terms, it is true, but the essential fact, which ought to bo the commanding fact, is the fact that the freehold cannot on any account be given them; nay, more, that no pro-

po?nl for its transfer on any terms whatever to them can be given any consideration. Refusal, blank, direct, is tho only possible answer to any petition for such transfer. Tho Lands Committee seemed to take that view, for they reported that they had no recommendation to make. They were aware by the speeches of the members aforesaid of the alleged need for protecting the improvements of tho tenants. Nevertheless they had no recommendation to make. Moreover, in noting the speeches about these improvements, the Committee was careful not to endorse the contention of tho speakers. It is, of course, common knowledge, possessed by the Committee, as by all men who have the least acquaintance with the course of Parliamentary events, that great care was taken by tho Legislature, to give security of tenure to the leaseholders. This applies to all leaseholds; those under the L.I.F. system and those under its successor. One of the mast remarkable features of the discussion of the Land Bills question is the persistence with .which all the land experts in both Houses of Parliament threshed out the question of security of tenure, a large part of which is the protection of tho value of improvements in case of disturbance from any cause. We can quite understand, therefore, that tho Lands Committee was careful not to endorse the argument in the aforesaid speeches, based on the insecurity of improvements. How these speakers made the discovery that all the honest and very capable endeavours of Parliament to safeguard the improvements have come to nothing, it is for them to explain. In the meantime their discovery can only he regarded as part of the main assault on the national endowments. It supplied a mask which trade the attack of these very improper petitioners less barefaced. Tlhe Prime Minister’s statement in tho House after the presentation of the report is really most amazing. He said tho subject would receive very careful consideration from tho Government, and ho regretted that tho subject had come before the House to deal with this session. Consideration! Regret! This was a demand, pure and simple, ■inked and unashamed, for the freehold. Tlhe demand, apart from all other considerations, touches a matter of political party division. All such matters aro buried in the grave with tho party 'hatchet. As head of the Nat.onal Government, based on that burial of the party hatchet, the Prime Minister ought to have stamped on the matter as rigidly excluded from parliamentary agitation. He ought to have declined in. the most peremptory manner to allowed it to bo considered at all. His remarks wore therefore a ■breach of the spirit of the coalition agreement. It is all very well to talk of tho insecurity of improvements. But the demand was not for the protection of improvements. It was for the freehold. Mr Massey has .every right to his own opinion about the freehold, of couisc. But as head of the Rar tional Government, which has buried party, he should have put his opinion In his pocket and kicked the demand, which, contravened the understanding under which ho, like all the Ministers, ho’ds his office, out of the door. But he is going to give it th© careful consideration of .tho Government, and he regrets that cannot be done at once. His own view is clear enough, of course. Ho indicated it by saying that he had done already all he could to safeguard improvements under leases. This looks remarkably like a plea that the improvements cannot, in his opinion, be safeguarded; that, therefore, there is nothing for it but to stamp on tho scrap of paper. And there was not a word from the Liberal s.do of the House. The men who made the endowments and devised the L.I.P. Act are silent. No one even ventured to protest that, in the improbable event of tho improvements being found unprotected, their case can only be discussed without any reference to tho freehold. This though, as we have said, their discovery of insecurity of improvements by certain members who made speeches in support of the would-bo grabbers of the national property looks uncommonly like participation in a general assault on the endowment lands. Mr Massey’s confession of his own failure to safeguard improvements implies that he is ready to head that assault, and is regretting that he cannot do so this session. The transaction gets the necessary completeness from the name of the petitioner, one Schmidt. It is not Smith orSmythe;_ it is the form of tho patronymic, which exactly suits the Hunuish character of the aggression on tiho public endowments.