LABOUR AND LAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 34, 3 May 1927, Page 13

LABOUR AND LAND

THE PARTY’S POLICY DEFINED BY MR. HOLLAND BURDEN OF FARMERS (From Our Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, To-day. The Labour Party policy in regard to finance and land settlement in the Dominion was defined in Hamilton last night by Mr. H. Holland, Leader of the Opposition. He said the Labour Party proposed to go into the problems from the viewpoints of a steeplygraded system of land taxation against large estates and a system of requisition by negotiation and purchase where possible, and where not by compulsory acquisition, land to be valued at its proper market price by an appeal board representative of local bodies, local landholders and the Valuation Department'. There would be a perpetual lease, conditional on occupation, with periodical revaluation. The Labour Party was prepared to stand or fall by the principle that men should not be allowed to hold large areas of land for speculative purposes. Whoever held land would be required to hold land and use it. The speaker said his party supported the right to claim compensation for assessable improvements made to leasehold properties. Pie contended the Dominion could carry a population of 10,000,000 with scientifically organised primary and secondary production. LAND AGGREGATION Dealing with land aggregation, Mr. Holland said that 43,500,000 acres of occupied land were held by 85,734 people, out of a total population of close on 1,500,000. It would be bad enough if the distribution were on a just basis, but out of that 85,734 people there were 78,756 who held between them less than 14,000,000 acres, and there were 6,973 who held nearly 30,000,000 acres. In other words, 8 per cent, of the landholders held among them 69 per cent, of the area, and 92 per cent, held between them 31 per cent, of the area. THE MORTGAGE BILL. When the present Government came into office he had said that Government promised the farmer the freehold, but instead had given them the mortgage-hold, because since the Reformers took up reins of Government the mortgage bill had lifted to £282,000,000, which represented an increase of 188 per cent, during the period of 1911-12 to 1925-26, while at the same time the capital value, which now stood at £ 603,000,000, had only increased by 77 per cent, in the same period. In fact, up to the end of March this year the increase in mortgages was over 199 per cent. The amount of registered mortgages at present was, £300,000,000. The Government Statistician said that 55 per cent, of the mortgage value was on occupied rural lands and 45 per cent, on town and suburban lands. If they worked out the interest at 61 per cent, they would see that the proportion which the working farmer paid was in the vicinity of £10,000,000. He did not think there was a. country in the world where mortgage charges stood in the same high proportion to the capital value as in New Zealand. Mr. Holland referred to th growth of the interest bill and how the amount borrowed at low rate of interest had progressively declined, though at higher rates had increased. LAND SETTLEMENT

Touching on land settlement, Mr. Holland said the Government had purchased land at such a high price that soldiers were unable to make a living on it. In many cases the soldiers who had been placed on these sections had been forced to abandon them, and when new men took them over the Government reduced the values and the newcomer got the benefit of the reduction, and also of ail the soldiers had put into the land. There were 150,000 land-owners in New Zealand and since: the Reform Government came into office there had been 450,000 land transfers. The area of land transferred amounted to 37,500,000 acres and nearly 37 per cent, of this was in rural districts. Transfers cost £24,000,000, a very large proportion of which went towards the upkeep of the uneconomic land agency system. The Labour Party’s policy was to make the Land Department undertake the work of transfer, at the bare cost. He had nothing to say against land agents as a class, but the system was undoubtedly wrong. Pie added that his party was of opinion that all Government lands offered for settlement should be cleared before settled at the expense of the State by the State clearing party, accompanied by a State sawmill. He believed that in this way timber values would be conserved by the State.

AUCKLAND MEETING

Among the subjects to be discussed by Mr. H. B. Holland, M.P., and Leader of the Opposition, at a meeting in the Town Plall concert chamber to-mor-row evening will be “Unemployment and the Government’s Immigation Policy,” Labour’s Land Policy, and other problems of Dominion politics. Mr. Holland is an able speaker and his utterances are listened to in Parliament with the closest interest.