THE PELORUS GUARDIAN AND MINERS' ADVOCATE FRIDAY, 12th APRIL, 1907. AN APPEAL TO CÆSAR.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 8, Issue 30, 12 April 1907, Page 4

THE PELORUS GUARDIAN AND MINERS' ADVOCATE FRIDAY, 12th APRIL, 1907. AN APPEAL TO CÆSAR.

The Land Bill is meeting with such universal disapproval throughout the colony that when a fresh opponent comes to light or a new mode of attack is introduced very little surprise is shown. The honourable Minister who is alleged to be primarily responsible for the birth of the unfortunate weakling is showing signs that the responsibility is becoming too great for him to bear alone much longer, and the Attorney-General has been called to explain to a doubting public that the infant is really not so black nor so vicious as it is painted. The latest opponent of the Bill is the Farmers’ Union Advocate , the accredited organ of the united farmers of the colony. The paper takes a new line on this important question, and following is an extract from a recent article

It may not have occurred to the labouring man in New Zealand that the Land Bill affects him almost as directly, if not quite as materially, as it does the farmer. The prosperity of the farmer is at once a solution of the labour problem, for the greater the profit made on the farm the more money is available for expenditure in labour, to say nothing of the increased spending power on all classes of manufactured goods. If the leasehold farmer has no security of tenure he has not the incentive to develop the resources of his bolding, with the. result that his profits are smaller than they should be, and the amount expended on labour is proportionately less. Any measure, therefore, which creates or perpetuates insecurity (as the proposed Land Bill undoubtedly does) should be strenously resisted by the working' classes as a body. The labouring man should assist in framing legislation which will ameliorate his condition, and should remember that he may himself some day be possessed of a farm, His ambition generally is to make his home his very own, and he should, therefore, rally round those who, being tillers of the soil, have the same laudable desire.

Water and oil will mix as readily as the two classes referred to here will agree on the land question. The labouring man of the cities is reared in an atmosphere of socialism, and is taught that the real oppressor of the “ working men ” is the landowner, be his holding large or small. To the labouring classes, as well as to classes more highly placed, the freehold spells ruin to the colony, while the leasehold system is the only possible means of checkmating the acquisitiveness of the man with money and with a desire for broad acres all his own. The Farmers’ Union insist on the freehold; and those of their members who became Crown tenants under the icgis of the Land for Settlements Act clamour also for the freehold at the original value. With such aspirations as these the workers cannot possibly have any sympathy, but the suggested alliance may actually be brought about if the Labourers’ Unions of the colony can be induced to believe that they are fighting their hereditary enemy capital. A similar unholy alliance was effected by the Church and the bookmakers in an endeavour to overthow the totalisator. It is true that the combined forces in the struggle emerged somewhat the worse for : wear, the clerical element especially, but it was in a good cause; and if the contest proved the grave of many reputations it also proved that the spectacle of Satan reproving sin is not an impossibility. We fear the Advocate has a hard row to hoe, for however undesirable many of the clauses of the Bill are to the majority of the people of the colony the refusal of the Government to grant the freehold at the original valuation, and the restriction of value or area, will commend the measure to many who have the best interests of the colony at heart.