THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1907. MR McNAB AT CARTERTON.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8341, 25 January 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1907. MR McNAB AT CARTERTON.

There was nothing particularly new, j or convincing, in the speech which the Minister for Lands (the Hon. R. McNab) delivered in Carterton last Wednesday evening. Mr McNab met with a good hearing, and it is only right and proper that a politician occupying the responsible position which Mr McNab does should be well re reived v by any audience in the colony. There are certainly clauses in the Bill, or rather the intention' with which , they have been inserted than the clauses themselves, which must be approved of to some extent by every progressive-minded New Zealander, but taking the Bill, as a whole, it seems to us to be altogether i unnecessarily complicated, arbitrary, and compiled by .someone who has a very strong sympathy with the principle of land nationalisation. We have', no doubt, whatever, but that Mr McNab is perfectly sincere in his conviction that the development and future prosperity of this country depends upon the Hnd being more closely settled, and, in this connection, we would humbly observe that the form of tenure which most encourages settlement, and settlement- combined with development of the best kind, is the freehold tenure. Mr McNab's contention that he is offering the Crown tenants, who hold their lands under the lease-in-perpetuity, something "as good as a freehold'* seems rather weak, for the obvious answer is "why not give the freehold on terms that you consider lair?" But the position amounts to this —Mr McNab will

not allow that anyone should secure a freehold, save only those whom j he cannot prevent from securing it. The lease-in-perpetuity tenant is not to be allowed to acquire the freehold on any terms whatever, and neither is the fperson who may take up any area, no matter how limited, of what is at present called "waste" Crown land. Mr McNab declares that he is going to force a great quantity of freehold land into the market by compelling the sub-division of large estates. But simply because the Minister for Lands would compel large landowners to cut up their estates, he cannot claim with any pretension of being logical, that he is a freeholder. The number of debatable points in the Land Bill is simply legion, and this fact alone must be regarded as an objection to the Bill. The Bill is complicated and drastic, and if it ever becomes law in anything approaching its present form it will no doubt be the subject of innumerable amendments. The trouble that it has given its promoter up to the present moment is pretty strong evidence of our contention. There is, practically, only one political party,, so far as the House is concerned, and the same statement applies pretty largely to the country as well, and when the Ward Administration came into power one would have thought that the most advisable course to have pursued in the interests of the country would have been to have passed a Land Bill simply calculated to promote rapidly closer settlement of the land. It is, certainly, desirable that there should be a limited area, and the most equitable means of securing this is by fixing a limitation of value. Large estates can be broken up by means of taxation, and by other weapons which the Government possess. Settlement of the land is really what the whole country wants, and while respecting the sincerity and the efforts of the Minister for Lands, we venture to say that more equitable, simpler, and effective means could be devised than those which he proposes shall be adopted.