THE LAND BILL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8353, 9 February 1907, Page 5

THE LAND BILL.

FROM A FREEHOLD POINT OF VIEW. ADDRESSES AT EKSTAHUNA. I AN ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING. (Special Reporter.) . Messrs J. C. Cooper, J. Peate (Wanganui), and D. Crewe (Pahiatua), representing the New Zealand Farmers' Union, delivered addresses in the Eketahuna Public Hall, last evening, on the Land Bill from a freehold point of view. The hall was well filled with an audience who gave the speakers the closest attention and applauded frequently. The chair was occupied by Mr A. H. Herbert, chairman of the Eketahuna Town Board. The Chairman, in introducing the speakers, said he wished lo say a few words in explanation of his ruling in connection with the motion that had been before the meeting on the occasion of Mr Mr Nab's recent address, and which he (the Chairman) had declared carried. He said he had a good view of the people in the hall, but he could not see whether the majority were in favour of the motion or against it. There was a doubt, and he had given Mr McNab the benefit of the doubt. The speaker had been a Crown tenant, and he considered that he could speak oh the Land Bill. He failed to see how the Bill could be upheld as it stood at present. With regard to the general impression that all the townspeople were in favour of the Bill, he declared that he did j not believe that 10 per cent, of the people of Eketahuna viewed the Bill with favour. Mr Cooper was received with loud and prolonged applause. His remarks throughout were warmly applauded. Mr Cooper said it gave his colleagues and himself great pleasure to come to Eketahuna and discuss the Land Bill. The Minister for Lands had already explained to the people of Eketahuna his side of the Bill, and the speaker and his colleagues were there, from the Farmers' Union, to explain what the Bill would mean to the whole colony. He and the other speakers were experts,"'* or at least they considered themselves experts, on farming matters. Some would wonder why the Colonial President of the Farmers' Union did not appear on the platform, but there were certain reasons why he should not do so. Therefore he had to send his lieutenants to .explain the measure. The Minister, at his meeting at Eketahuna, ■ had complained that the advocates of the freehold were endeavouring to kick away, the ladder by which they had climbed into a farm. As one of those who had used the ladder, the speaker wished to state, in reply, that when he became a settler in the Eketahuna district, his came just a year or two too late to take advantage of a better ladder, in the shape of the O.R.P. and deferred payment systems, which formed the chief features of the late Mr W. Rolleston's Land Act. The argument used against granting the freehold to the L.I.P. settler was that the unearned increment on such lands belonged to ' the State. He used arguments to show that the improvements put upon the land by settlers was really the unimproved value that Socialists said ' belonged to theState; iHovfever, the Government appeared to accede to the demands of the Socialists by abolishing all previously known systems of takingup land and substituting a 66 years lease. As the lease-in-perpetuity had proved a bad tenure to the poor man, continued the speaker, it stood to reason that the 66 year 3 would be infinitely worse. He outlined the expense and difficulties a man going on the land had to' contend with. Where could a settler get monetary assistance on so insecure a basis as only a 66 years ownership? asked the speaker. With a sound tenure he could borrow sufficient to help him alpng with his improvements and to stbfck his holding. The settler, under a sound tenure, could get all the money 1 he wanted at a reasonable rate, whereas under the lease-in-perpetuity he could only get small advances at high rates. The speaker went on to say that the tenure of the land exerted an influence in its productiveness. The freeholder would naturally put more energy and work \ into his holding, and consequently the land would produce morel Instances w£re known where : leasehold lands, which were considered unproductive,had been broken up into small freehold and, under scientific methods, and good hard work, had proved highly productive and capable of supporting families. He contended that the 66 years' lease would in time destroy the value of as, it would deteriorate through want of interest in working it. If the settler put money into it he locked his money up for 66 years, with the possibility at the end of the term of losing a portion if not the whole of it. He considered there should be no distinction between poor and rich, but the present system was decidedly in favour of the man with capital; and the State should at least give everyone the right of obtaining the freehold at say one per cent, added to the original cost to put everyone on the same basis. The speaker then went on to deal with limitation clauses of the Bill. He said the real limit was £15,000, that is, what a man could buy up to and not what he could sell down to. The effect of such a-limitation clause would be that the banks would have to a large extent to cease doing business. It would have the same effect on the large commercial houses, and insurance offices in the colony, with the result that +here would be heavy withdrawal of money, a rise in the rate of interest, and a consequent lowering of capital values. The freehold tenure would no longer be "gilt-edged." The men who would be the hardest hit would naturally be the struggling settlers —men who had been put on to farms by the financial companies, and whose chief reason for being on a fnrm was their work and ability to manage the farm. The limitation clause would prevent present landowners /from going in for improvements on an overdraft as the whole credit system of the colony rested on the farmers' lands. In fact, it would have a serious effect on every business. It would damage all - security, and it would have the same effect on the /business man as upon the struggling farmer. The Farmers' Union did not want large estates. They have recognised that what New Zealand

wanted was that ploughmen, shepherds, sons of farmers and others should have favourable opportunities of settling on the land. These men have had a training; they were experts, not amateurs, and were therefore likely to become of service to the State, and successful for themselves, if only they could get land under favourable conditions. The Bill did not give them a favourable opportunity of taking land; they would not have the necessary capital. If, therefore, owners who held more than £50,000 worth of land were to be given the opportunity of selling their lands, the £15,000 limit should be excised from the Bill, or the value of the land they were forced to seli would certainly depreciate. The price of money and safety of security had so much to do with the price of land that any rise in interest at once lowered the value of land. He declared that there was no necessity at all for the £15,000 limit. The administration of native lands was also . criticised by the speaker. He declared that there were being created in New Zealand two systems of landlordism, the State being on one side and the Maoris on the other. In concluding his address Mr Cooper outlined generally the effects of the Bill. It eliminated the freehold and made it impossible for a man to take up land Ifrom the Crown; it made the lease-in-perpetuity more insecure; there was no provision in the measure for settling the waste native lands of the colony; the. limitation proposals upset the financial system of New Zealand, and would not meet the requirements of land for settlement; the endowment proposals were another name for land nationalisation; no Bill of thecharacter of the present one should be put on the Statute Book of the colony, before being placed before a referen- i dum of the people through the ballot boxes. Messrs Crewe and Peate also briefly addressed the meeting. Mr Crewe dealt with the Pahiatua leases, and said the" same would apply to the proposals of the Land Bill. Amotion, "that this meeting considers that the settlers should have the option of the Bill being satisfactory which did not embody the proposal," was carried unanimously.