THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1908. OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3024, 22 October 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1908. OF SUPREME IMPORTANCE.

There is one question of supreme importance involved in the present General Election, and that is the securing of the inviolability of the freehold tenure so far as if. is possible to do so. There is, of course, only one way to accomplish the object mentioned, and that is for electors to vote solidly for freehold candidates. Every candidate who is not a straight-out freeholder, or from whose past it may be gathered that he is not likely to prove a genuine freeholder, should not be return c-d, as his candidature is in opposition to the real interests of the Dominion, because he is not favourable to w! at

is essential to the success of the great bulk of our important producers—viz., pastoralists, agriculturists, and dairy farmers. A strenuous fight has been put up by the freeholders to retain and extend the freehold tenure, and with some mea sure of success, but it may be said that the battle is hardly won yet, and even if something in the nature of a decided victory had been gained, it would be impossible to say how soon the leaseholders, the land nationalists, and single taxers in Parliament would be at their old games again. Those who have determinedly advocated the freehold, and in this connection the work of the Farmers' Union should not be forgotten, have performed a national service invaluable beyond computation, but it should not be forgotten that the land legislation of the Government is of a "piebald" character. On the occasion of the last general election it was supposed that a majority of members pledged to support the freehold had been returned, but, unfortunately, some of the "independent" members of the Government proved to be sorry "wobblers," and the National Endowments measure was placed upon the Statute Book. The importance of the freehold tenure to the prosperity of the Dominion cannot estimated. The farmers of one class and another constitute the "back-bone" of the country, and the nature of the tenure upon which they hold their lands is essential to progress. The farmers, and, indeed, the people of the whole country, are dependent for their prosperity upon the prices realised on the Home markets for the Dominion''? products, and the electors who cast their votes with a genuine desire to develop the country will, no doubt, not fail to see that' their support is given to those who advocate the freehold tenure.