Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21 1908. DEFEAT OF MB McNAB.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4339, 21 November 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21 1908. DEFEAT OF MB McNAB.

This above all—to thine own self be true , And \t must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

The defeat of Mr NcNab must be regarded in the light of a defeat ft r leasehold, and though it is not the function of this journal to denounce any policy upon party grounds, yet we claim that it is our privilege to express our sympathy with any development which we conceive to be for the good of the Dominion. Considering the principle of freehold upon its very broadest basis, namely the relation of it to the welfare of the whole Dominion, we affirm that because the weakening of anything which has tended to burden or discourage agriculture is the weakening of the fetters which have hindered the progress of the Dominion as a whole, the present development is a very good thing. No fair-minded man of average intelligence, and quite average imagination, can fail to see the almost painful importance of the freehold to our agriculturalists. We are speaking of course of the freehold of limited areas, for we firmly believe that land being the fixed quantity that it is no one should be allowed to acquire the freehold of a vast area. But of the freehold as applied to reasonable areas we strongly approve. How can we expect our farmers to put the strength of their best years into the actual making of their land, to rate themselves for the probable full length of their lives, to keep on returning to their land in the form of improvements the hard won profits of both fat and lean years, just as the capitalist keeps on returning to his business the profits of bis industry, if they may never be a.lowed to feel that the land they have actua ly redeemed from desolation is truly their own

For it does not matter who one’s landlord is, if there be a landlord either private or public the farmer is never “ quite, quite, sure ” what that autocratic being may or may not decree on the morrow. The recent proposal to infamously break faith with the 999 years leaseholders was enough to make the hair of any leaseholder stand on end with apprehension. A man cannot possibly be expected to do the very best with his farm so long as he is haunted by doubts as to the future. Even in the breast of the ordinary man there exists the desire to leave his farm in possession of his heirs, not as a quantity for the use of which they must indefinitely continue to pay rent to the State, but as an own possession.

The fact is that in the denying of the farmer the ownership of his land is involved the principle of socialism. The farmer’s land is his capital,

and it would be as] reasonable to deny the capitalist the ownership of his funds for the successful conduct of his business, as to deny the farmer the freehold. The man on the land is the most important factor in the Dominion, and he ought to receive every conceivable encouragement, for he is the producer of the raw material, wherefrom we manufacture our woalens, our rope and twine, our bacon, butter, cheese, flour,and tinned foods, not to mention other commodities. Therefore while we feel that if the iprinciple of the right of the man on the land to call the land which he has developed his own has been emphasised, it is a very good thing for the Dominion. We do not wish to see in this country of prosperity and equality the fundamental principle of socialism introduced. We rather advocate the granting to every fit citizen who has the grit to achieve anything the full benefit for himself and his heirs of that which ho has achieved, whether it be a farm where there was a wilderness, or swamp, or whether it be a fortune where there was a scrap heap. We depend, to a far larger extent than some folk appear to think upon our agriculturalists, and we are gM they have scored.