TALK on land tenure

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 424, 4 August 1928, Page 13

TALK on land tenure

labour makes a DISCOVERY REFORM’S LEASEHOLD POLICY TgE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. labour members to-night saw in the apparently innocuous clause of the jjanmer Crown Leases Bill, by which tenants with sections at Hanmer township may secure the perpetual right of renewal instead of the present 42-year tenure, a principle of Labour land policy embodied in a Reform enactment. The clause concerned prevents lessees from sub-letting except with special authority. jlr. M. J- Savage congratulated Reform on at last adopting a portion of Labour’s policy. The Hon. A. D. McLeod: That clause has been in every land law in our history. Mr. Savage: We have the cool assurance that it’s been in every land law, yet with all that Reform has used Labour’s adoption of this clause as a useful political weapon. Will the Mincer tell the House the difference between this and what Labour had been accused of standing for? (Reform laughter.) “It’s no use wriggling." Mr. H. E. Holland and Mr. L>. G. Sullivan joined in the Labour congratulations. Mr. Sullivan said that this showed the hollowness and insincerity of Reform’s opposition. When the Hon. R. A. Wright rose to reply, Mr. Sullivan said, “I suppose, as an ex-Socialist, you helped to inspire the Minister to frame this clause ?" Mr. Wright, hotly: As an ex-Social-ist, I left the Socialist Party because I saw exactly where it was drifting. The Hon. O. ,T. Hawken said that it was amazing that the Labour Party had never discovered that clause in bour land policy, which was not made the Crown leases before. Mr. E. J. Howard defended the Lady a party leader but by the rank and file. Mr. Coates: Oh! Then the Labour leader rides to orders! Mr. McLeod said that such clauses as that criticised had always been embodied in the land laws, but were applied for other purposes than those to which Labour proposed to apply them.