The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, MARCH 15th, 1919. SETTLEMENT AND PRODUCTION

Taihape Daily Times, 15 March 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, MARCH 15th, 1919. SETTLEMENT AND PRODUCTION

(With which Is incorporated The /"*!■ hape Post and Walciailvo News).

The Minister for Lands, now in Enland, has on several occasions when questioned about not placing men upon the land, almost invariably replied that men were not available. Mr. Massey evidently meant that the men of precisely the correct political colour were not forthcoming for land settlement. No one will be surprised at this explanation of land stagnation, because the whole country is so disgusted with the Minister, his Government and his policy that if he were to place his last political supporter on land the increase of settlement would be negligible. 'The Minister’s party in the country has proved itself superior to its Government,' and has left its reactionary crew stranded high and dry, with its derelict,, benighted policy, from whence no One thinks it worth while to attempt to rescue it. The Press of the whole Dominion, Reform and otherwise, have urged the Government to do some-

thing towards securing such increase of settlement as will materially raise the country’s sum total of production

so as to minimise the taxation burdens that are hanging over the heads of producers at this present moment. By the Government’s wicked bulking up of indirect taxation it has done as much as any class of profitcers to increase the cost .of living, disorganise industrial conditions, and bring the masses of the people to a state of mind in which they rather look to Bolshevism and anarchy than

to their present oppressors for any sign of relief that must and will conic. The two questions, land settlement, which means the need for more production; and taxation, arc now so closely dependent one upon the other that they must be considered together. There is already a plenitude of labour of the unskilled character, and there is even a cry of unemployment in some centres; at the same time there are millions of acres or land lying idle or in indifferent occupation. This was all pointed out a year ago by newspapers, who saw it was inevitable, to an incapable and stubborn Government, and though the cry for work is reaching a clamant stage our crazy legislators arc still levying huge indirect are continuing their determination to keep soldiers and others off the idle

lands while they have an unlawful grip of power. It is even said with some authority that this venal Ministry has determined to rob the people of their political rights for another year. We say that such outrageous lawlessness would be justifiably mot with other lawlessness and the party of greed will have reached out for that they justly deserve. What reliance can bt placed on the words’ of a Government who fools the country into supporting it by a dishonest slogan of “settlement and still more settlement,” and which demonstrates its utter insincerity by placing every obstacle possible in the way of soldier settlement to a ludicrous extreme to

keep soldiers off the land? While the Government Is stating that there are not men available to go on the land to increase production that will alleviate the taxation under which the masses are groaning, their administration is using every silly pretext for refusing land to soldiers. When a man gives his services to his country by enlistment, or is conscripted, accepted, put into camp and into His Majesty’s uniform, who is fool enough to say that man is not verily and legally a soldier? This Government says he is not a soldier and not entitled to ballot for land set apart for soldier settlement. What will be regarded by many people

as dodgery of the provisions of Act of

Parliament lies in the Government's

refusal to give men in camp, when peace came, a discharge, those soldiers are only given leave and as the Act provides that only “discharged men” may have land allotted to them these soldiers are all denied any right whatever under the Soldier Settlement Act. Truly, the land has every appearance of being the Government’s, also the fullness thereof, and they mean to keep everybody off until by desperation it is wrested from them. The

Land Board refuses to give soldiers the laud unless they can produce a

discharge, and the Defence Department is refusing to give the men the discharge they surely ought to be entitled to. Such treatment of men by an inept Government is destroying every sbrod of patriotism with which the country was flooded when the insane dealings with soldiers was commenced by the Defence Department at the commencement of the war. Returnd soldiers arc clamouring for employment, and jncn released from camp on leave are seeking for land, but neither the employment nor the land is forthcoming. While indirect taxation, the most prolific cause of the high price of everything workers cat, wear or otherwise use, is increasing; while such industries as flaxinilling are clos-

ing down because the high, cost of living has rendered them unprofitable, unemployment is alarmingly increasing and the Government is unearthing every imbecile pretext for refusing their logical 'right to occupy land. Some official, inane twaddle about provision in favour of men who went into camp as fit men, and about the entire disabilities of unfit men who offered their services for home work to enable fit men to go to the front, is nothing but red herring, obscuring the scent. No man can get laud without a discharge, and the Defence Department is withholding that discharge. Even fit men who lost their 'fitness in the Defence service are excluded from all rights under the soldier se'ttltmeut regulations. If there was not enough land in New Zealand to go round; if a crushing taxation on production was not imminent; if present indirect taxation was not rendering the pursuit of some industries impossible, actually closing them down; if the cost of living problem was not almost daily pressing increasingly heavy on the masses, placing necessaries beyond their reach, the action of the Government in keeping closed the legitimate channels to more settlement, more work and more production would he

understandable; but while indirect taxation is increasing, and while a crisis has been reached in coalmining and other industries, actually closing some of them down, and thus decreasing production, to invent means for keeping men off the laud is the height of legislative insanity. The latest menace to the speedy betterment of producers and the masses is the feeler the Government has put out to ascertain whether the country would consent to being (disfranchised for yet another year. The ordinary taxpayer is bewildered with the unexampled gyrations of the. Government over land settlement, taxation, cost of living, houselessness of the people, and the depressing state of public services, coalmining, flaxmilling ard other important industries. Conditions can only become worse with the practice of the “tight-sitting,” which the Government is pluming itself will open up a way to a further lease of power. Depression and want can be entirely avoided by an insistence of the people

on an immediate commencement of an honest tjolic?, 7 of “settlement and still more settlement” and “more production and still more production.” It is also obvious that if taxation and bigb costs of living increase the time is not tar distant when a crisis in production will arise, the means of living will have become so costly that it will not Pay to produce, and let it be noted that in this 'beautiful young country we have alredy reached that crisis in flaxmilling, in coalmining, and we are on the verge of it in wheat-growing and the provision of the “staff of life.” We would advise producers and workers to rub the scales off their eyes, for if they arc once crippled they will inevitably become the slaves of foreign money lenders.