The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 28, 1919. LAND GAMBLING.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 July 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JULY 28, 1919. LAND GAMBLING.

la all directions- and in several countries there exists at the present time a very dangerous tendency to gamble in land. So much has been made of the cry "back to the land," and to such hidi prices have the primary products soared, that inflation was bound to be in evidence, especially as thousands of those who have been engaged in the war are turning to an outdoor life and swelling the rapidly increasing number of applicants for land. The effect of these causes is being seen, so far as New Zealand is concerned, mostly in dairying districts, not so much by reason of the lure of profits from butter, cheese and meat, but from the vision of greatly increased returns from by-products such as dried milk sugar of milk and other gilt-edged commodities. It is a true maxim that land is only worth what itj produces, though it is also true that two men may farm 100 acres of exactly similar land yet one of them will produce largely in excess of the other. So long as the demand for increased production can be met by more intense energy, the application of scientific methods and the use of the best labor-saving devices the country's prosperity will be assured and the country will progress on sane lines, and the value of land will rise accordingly, but so surely as land values are unduly inflated by speculators and those who are gambling on prospective profits from by-products which may be akin to castles in the air, when a slump comes there will be a day of reckoning which will spell disaster. The members of our expeditionary forces were promised a "square deal" when the war was over and they came back to settle on the land. There was no idea then that the main body and earlier reinforcements would have to go through such a terribly prolonged, arduous and dangerous experience. How is this square deal being carried out? It was recently stated by the Crown Lands Commissioner for Canterbury that owners of land sometimes asked from forty to one hundred per cent aiiove the Government valuation for land for soldiers, and he mentioned a case in which a would-be seller had appealed against a valuation of £2246 as excessive, and then asked £3250 from a returned soldier. The same experience has, been met Avith in the north, drawing from the Auckland "commissioner the remark that whereas some vendors are patriotic, others appear to be actuated mainly by cupidity, an instance in point being the offer to the Government of land for soldiers at the price of £42,000. the recent Government valuation of which was £12,700, and an objection to that figure was made by the owner on the ground that it was excessive. These may be extreme cases,' but not a day passes without numerous land jobbing deals being put through, many of them being purely speculative. What chance is there for our returned soldiers to obtain land at a price that will enable them to become prosperous settlers no matter how hard they work? None at all. One of the most pathetic features of this inflation of prices is the crushing weight of piled up mortgages, each one making it harder for the struggling settler and his family. It is impossible for any man whose land is weighted with several mortgages to find the money for first-class stock, implements and the requisite mechanical aids to that intensive production which is so essential to meet the burdens of the war. The more the land costs above its producing value, the more it adds to the expense of running the farm. This is bad for the farmer, and bad for the community, for manifestly if the producer's income is restricted in this way the community must suffer. A boom in land is one of the worst things that can happen to any district or country. There has been, it must be said, a steady appreciation in laud prices in Taranaki for many years past, but there has also been a steady increase in the value of the products. During the past four months, however, in many districts prices have leapt by 20 to 40 per cent. / There has been no increase in the prices of produce during that time to justify such a tremendous advance. Prices for products are quite satisfactory —compared with pre-war prices—for another season, but, after that, | what will be the position ? We are j optimistic enough to believe that 1

they will not recede for-some time afterwards, but, on the other hand, there is ever the possibility of the market falling. No one can say with any certainty what the prices will be. The possibility of a fall has to be taken into consideration by purchasers of land, but they, on the contrary, are banking on a substantial increase either from butter-fat or by-products. It is a tendency full of danger. They have no margin to come and go upon, and if reverses happen, as they sometimes do with even the most capable dairymen, or if prices decrease ever so slightly, the capital they have invested will disappear, and-all their work, and [that of their family, will have gone for nothing. Sound land values are the bulwark of any district or country, and we are not going to say that they do not obtain in our province—for much of Taranaki's land is worth the price it is selling for, and what is being asked-—, but, on the other hand, ! there is, speaking generally, a i strong tendency towards an infia., tion of prices that can only result inimically to the interests of those purchasing, and of the province generally. Whilst it is easy enough to point out these things, it is, we admit, quite another matter to prescribe a cure for land-gamb-ling. Once you interfere with the law of supply and demand, and the right to sell land or anything else, you are immediately in deep and troubled waters; but the consequence of the present tendency may become so serious a menace to the well-being and stability of the country as to justify legislative action in the direction, among others, of treating small-deposit sales as only leases, to permit transfers to only bona fide settlers, and to suppress speculation; to restrict the amount of land an individual may hold; and to bring Government valuations nearer the selling prices.