The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1892. THE LAND BILL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2400, 17 September 1892, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1892. THE LAND BILL.

The Land Bill has at last passed through the House of Representatives. It has experienced a stormy passage, nine or ten days having altogether been spent on it, yet Ministers are blamed for pushing it through too hurriedly. If Ministers had not gone to work so energetically it would never have passed at all. With regard to its provisions, it certainly contains innovations. The first is that of the freehold tenure. Hitherto anyone could buy Crown land for cash, and let it lie idle, but this has been altered now. Any man buying land, if this Bill is passed, must make certain stipulated improvements on it before he can get the Crown grant of it. This is right. In the past a poor man who bought a town allotment had to build and live on it within a given time, but the wealthy man who bought thousands of acres for speculative purposes was not bound by any such conditions. This innovation gave great offence to the Opposition, because it shuts out the speculators, and this was the cause of most of the trouble. The Opposition were fighting for speculators, the Government Tor honajide settlers. A change has also been made with regard to deferred payment land. The Government found that many poor men were greatly hampered by having to pay their instalments, and they changed the system so that persons taking up land now need not pay for it for 20 years, so long as they pay interest on the capital value of it. This is a great relief to deferred payment holders. The great feature of the Bill, however, is the lease in perpetuity, This is an innovation that will simply do away with all demand for freehold. Ho one will in future look for a freehold so long as he can get a lease in perpetuity. This innovation was inserted specially to please Sir George Grey, but the result has been that Sir George Grey has joined the stonewallers against the Bill. Is it therefore to be wondered at that the trades unions and labor organisations throughout the colony are passing resolutions condemnatory of Sir George Grey’s conduct. The one-raan-one-run clause is another innovation. Sir George Grey has advocated this for years, and now he has joined the stonewallers against it. In the Christchurch Press of Thursday Sir George Grey is praised up to the skies, and that we think is enough to satisfy all Liberals that he is no longer worthy of confidence. We notice that the Conservative Press is now calling on the Legislative Council to destroy the Land Bill. Let them do it; they may delay it for another year, but it will come up again in a more Liberal form next year and it will be carried too. The more obstructive the Council becomes the better. It will only intensify the enmity its actions have already engendered, and force the people to fight more determinedly for their rights and privileges.

THE PRESS AGAIN,

In the Press of last Thursday there were three articles as full of falsehood as an egg is full of meat. The Press says the cost of changing from the Property Tax to the Land and Income Tax is £32,000. This is not true. Under the Property Tax valuators were sent round every three years, and if no change had taken place the money would have been spent on valuing under the Property Tax just exactly as it has been spent under the Land and Income Tax. It merely amounts to six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. Then the Press wants to prove that the present Government are extravagant because they paid £02,000 in pensions and retiring allowances last year. The Government could not help it. They were bound by Acts of Parliament to pay pensions and retiring allowances, and if they had not done so the men to whom money was due could have summosed them to Court and made them pay. A few years ago the Railway Commissioners refused to pay compensation to retired railway officers. They were summoned to Court, and made to pay. The same thing would have happened if the Government had refused to pay. It is an outrageous thing to accuse the Government of extravagance for having paid what they were bound by law to pay. It shows how hard up their enemies are for something to say against the Government when such a charge as this is the only one that can be preferred against them. Then the followers of Gie Government are abused in very violent language for the senile and dog-like fidelity” with which they vote, and they are accused of •■ £ ignorance,” and so 00. -f'O doubt it they voted on the other side they would be very enlightened. ! ' ie hist time the Liber;'.!* had an unpurchasabie majority in Parliament, and the Tories do not like it. (fur present Liberals can’t be bought, and hence the abuse.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS,

Tuk “ Women's Rights ” clause passed t] 10 second reading in the Legislative Council, but it is not altogether safe yet. The Legislative CounciUntends to insert a clause in it that will give women what are called electoral rights, such as seamen, commercial travellers and shearers possess. 1 his is a dodge which the Conservatives think will work in their favor. It almost

amounts to giving women the right to vote by proxy, so that if they are living fiir away from a polling booth they can send in their votes, without having to come themselves. Women should be placed on an equal footing with men— nothingraore,nothingless — but this dodgery is not, we think, worth fighting for. At any rate it is expected that there will be a fight over this point, and that if it does not destroy the Women’s Rights Clause, it will go near it.