OCCUPANCY AND USE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 487, 17 October 1928, Page 9

OCCUPANCY AND USE

LABOUR'S LAND TENURE EXPOUNDED NO SPECULATION IN VALUES ♦ Press Association WESTPORT, Tuesday. Labour's land policy is based upon the principle of occupancy and use, said Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Opposition, in an address here this evening. Mr. Holland said that Labour would aim at breaking up the larger estates and would employ two methods to that end. Firstly, the land tax would be far 1 more steeply graded against the larger estates than was now the case, and. secondly, the Labour Government would take power to acquire either the whole or any portion of the larger estates for closer settlement. Wherever possible, land would be acquired on the basis of purchase by negotiation. Where this was not possible, the compulsory clauses of the legislation would be put into operation. The valuation of properties acquired would be determined by the ValuerGeneral in the usual way, but the interests of the owned would be safeguarded by rights of appeal. As explained by him at Masterton,. land so resumed would be settled on the leasehold tenure with the perpetual right of renewal guaranteeing permanency of occupation. There would be periodic revaluations, and the tenant’s absolute right to the value of his improvements would be provided for. Where heavily-timbered lands were found to be suitable for agricultural and pastoral settlement, the State would undertake the'work of clearing it so that the farmer would be in a position to enter upon the work of production immediately. In the process of clearing wherever timber could bo economically milled this would bo done, and timber values would be conserved to the State instead of being destroyed by fire, as was necessarily often the case now. In many cases it would be possible to make the timber milled assist in paying for the clear-, ing of the land. They regarded as uneconomic tii.e method of placing families on the land and leaving them without access to the markets to which they stood in .the relation of both purchasers and suppliers. Intensive farming would be helped and encouraged. The resources of the State would be utilised to make possible the application of the most scientific methods in farming and the marketing of fertilisers would be organised so as to ensure adequate supplies to the primary producers at the lowest possible cost. Furthermore, the State would give the maximum of assistance to organisations of farmers for co-operative production, purchasing, shipping, marketing, and credit. Existing tenures would not be interfered with. The Labour Party’s land platform declared for the full recognition of the owner’s interest in all land, including tenure, right of sale, transfer, and bequest. The Labour Party had nothing whatever to offer to the speculator and gambler in land values. They would make it a condition that whoever desired to hold land in New Zealand must occupy and use it,