MR. MASSEY AS A PROPHET.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 29 September 1917, Page 2

MR. MASSEY AS A PROPHET.

The Fielding Star in a recent issue states: —

Pukekohe will have to watch out, or its politician will be swallowed up in the role of prophet, its member having just clothed himself in the long-discard-ed mantle of Joshua. "I don't pose as a prophet," said Mr .Massey in the House, "but I venture to predict that we are on the eve of a very serious decrease in land values." How can the Premier expect the people to take that prophecy seriously? Land is harder to get than ever, and the Government's legislation has not tended to put quantities of it on the market —the only possibility of cheapening land. As a n-atter of fact, the Government has had to pay.prices demanded wherever it has sought land desired for soldiers' settlements. If it had had the courage of its convictions and had risen to the needs of the times and of our returned heroes, the National Cabinet would have commandeered the areas needed for closer 'settlement, and would have paid over to the previous owners just the fair price that a Court set up for that purpose arrived at. As it it, the Government is not even preventing wealthy Shirkers aggregating wholesale manner that is nothing short of scandalous. And all the time families are being lost to the back country and settlement retrogrades, instead of progressing by leaps and bounds. So long as there is aggregation on the one hand and land-hunger on the other. Mr. Massey, there will never be any sort of decrease in its price. And yet you affirm that "we are on the eve of a serious decrease in land values."