THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1910. LAND AND LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10069, 17 August 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1910. LAND AND LABOUR.

Mr David McLaren, M.P., was particularly careful in his address at Masterton to state that the Labour Party had absolutely no intention of assailing the position of the small farmer. Why he should have thought it necessary to jmake such a statement he, himself, knows be3t. The average city politician has about as much concern for the welfare of the man upon the land, be he large or small, as he has for the inhabitants of Mars. 'lhe fact that he was the guent of the member for Masterton may, have accounted, in a measure, for the solicitude-displayed for the 'tiller of the soil whom we are won't to dtv scribe as the "small farmer." But how does the published platform of the "New Zealand Labour Party," I for which both Messrs Hogg and McI Laren are ambassadors dovetail with the observitions made by the member for Wellington East concerning the small farmar? Mr McLaren devoted quite a portion of his address to explaining the land policy of the Fisher Government in Australia. Why did he not recite in detail the aims and objects of the "New Zealand Labonr Party," in respect to the land? He must have known whatf I (hose objects are, for he was reputed- J lyoneof lhos« responsible for frsm ing the platform of the Party. Why did he not say that one of ths planks in that platform supports "leasehold tenure, with ri'icht of renewal and periodical revaluation every twenty-one years, except for heavy bush and swamp lands?" Does this not assail the small farmer who happens to be! r a (tenant; of the Crown? How does the urball farmer relish the idea of having his land re-valued and. his rent f put up* as, it assuredly would be put up,; every twenty-one years? Ms McLacea ca»efu% omitted

to state that soother in the 3lntforra provides for an "increment tax on all land sales to secure to the State all socially-created val- j aes." Does the small farmer appreciate thia position? la he prepared to pay taxes, and stake his land as security for loans expended on Post Offices and public buildings in ths cities, to ceate increment for the merchant and the town dw6iler, and to surrender to the State similar increments accruing to the land"? Why did Mr McLaren not stress the point, also, that his party proposes an "increased gradutaed land tax?" I3itto be supposed for a moment that if the Labour Party were to i assume office the small farmer would be allowed to escape this tax? It is only a question of time when the man occupying three and four hundred acres of land will be regarded as a menace to settlement. The process of sub-division will have the Hame effect as it has had in France, it will make the small farmer of to-day the landlord of the future: Anid, so,; in .the, of years, this graduated land tax will be rigorously applied to the small farmer. IndeecY at the present time the Labour Party may have designs upon the small holder as well as upon the large, for, in the published platform no mention is made of exemptions, and it is fair to assume that tha graduated tax will be as mercilesEly imposed upon tha one as upon the other holder of land. Thus we fird the interest of the small farmer carefully protected by Mr 'McLaren and bis friends! It would be well, for the sake of all concerned, if the Labour Party were to place its platform prominently before the public, instead of endeavouring to appropriate sympathy by the employment of subterfuge and irrelevant platitude.