MR LLOYD GEORGE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 16 January 1913, Page 3

MR LLOYD GEORGE

I AM) THE LAM) gTKSTIOX. ! Mr Lloyd George recently addressed a meeting organised by the council 'of the. SoottMi Libera] Association in ) the Music-hall, Aberdeen. Extraordinary precautions were taken against suffragist disturbances, and the police in their search of the hall fouii'l three women with what was at first thought to lie a bomb or explosive*. l,at"" H was .-tat!'.,-.! that the women were carrying ammunition for. I toy pistols, and would make a loud j noise hut were harmless. One. of the women resisted, arrest and .struggled so violently that her clothes -were tern from her hack. All three refused to give, their .names. In his speech. Mr Lioyd George said : The social reform and every real improvement in the- lot of the people, is a thornuL'h am] complete change in our land system. (1,-Kid cheers.) Search out every problem. look into these fjne>l ions thoroughly, ami the more thoroughly von look into them you will lin-d i-]iT{ t-hn hind is at the root of most of them. Housing, wages, fond, health, tlie development of a, virile., ) independent, manly, imperial rare—you mo.st have a free land .system as an essential condition cf To use l a gnrd'oiiug phra"-\ our social and economic condition i,< root-hound by the ft mlal systrm. It has 11:1 room to develop: but it* roots aro breaking through. Well, let's htir-t it. There ; .s plenty of land outside for the roots to ..tnko in, to flourish and draw nourishment and bring forth fruit a hundrerlfoiil fe. r the peoplo who are hungering {:> v it. I What i: happening in Scotland? [ have had your emigration statistics, j What- rl i I find?—a larger omigra\tion even than in Ire-land: .-."ores :;-f thousands every year of the mot ablebodied, robust young fellows in your rural districts fleeing from their native land as if it were stricken with pestilence. Why? It is infected with the pestilence of land famine. We know the story of the Highlands—devastated and depopulated districts that used to be thronged with people who supplied the best warriors that the Empire ever sent forth to battle •for it: whole tracts of it lying waste, turned over to deer and grouse. How j many battalions of dee,- did they send • to South Africa when we wore at wary i And if there ever should be an inva- | ion of this land, do you think that the ; I foe is going to ho -scared off by flight.? jof grouse? (Laughter.) ( Tn land legislation one essentiai principal must he recognised—that tJio first purpose of the land of this country should l,e not the conferring jof power and pleasure upon the fa\" ■on red few, hut the provision of ■ sustenance and shelter for the multitudes who toil.