The Irish Land Bill

Recently passed by the British Parliament, establishes courts to fix rents, which rents cannot be raised for fifteen years, thereby enforcing the principle that the State has a right to define the respective interest of the landlord and tenant. This legislation is entirely opposed to any absolute ownership of the land.

With regard to this Act Mr. J. E. Fitzgerald remarks :—"The recent legislation on the subject of the land in Ireland has greatly hastened the period when the question must be brought to a practical issue. That measure seems to me to be a final abandonment on the part of the British Parliament of the doctrine of the inviolability of the right of private property in land."

From the opinions of these writers and speakers, and the action of Parliament on the subject of land tenure, I think all must allow that the proposal that the State should repurchase the large freehold blocks, cannot be page 20 objected to on the ground of its injustice, and further, I think it must be allowed that the tables are turned, and that instead of its being an injustice to the landholders that the State should compulsorily re-purchase, it is an injustice to the community if the State does not do so, provided that it can be shown that the continued occupation of these lands is against the public interest, and that their occupation is preventing settlement.

To enable us to come to a decision on this question I shall have to trouble you with a few figures, showing the quantity of land alienated since the foundation of the Colony, and the quantity under cultivation.

The quantity of land sold since the foundation of the Colony, in round numbers amounts to 13,300,000 acres, in addition to which 5,600,000 acres have been alienated without payment, mostly in the province of Auckland, where a free grant system was in force for some time. This gives a total of about 19,000,000 acres.

It must be remembered that the land disposed of is the pick of the country, both for quality and accessibility.

We will now see what quantity of this land is under cultivation.

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That is to say, that of the nineteen million acres alienated, there are only four and a quarter million acres under cultivation, and even including land upon which grass seed has been scattered without the land having been broken up, the total is about seven millions and a quarter acres. The remaining eleven and three quarter million acres are still in the same condition as when parted with by the State.

Allowing for townships and small areas not included in the Government returns, there will be at least 10,000,000 acres on which the land-holders have never expended anything for cultivation.

Of the four and a quarter million acres under cultivation, over two and three quarter million seres are in grass. The total quantity under grain being less than three quarters of a million seres. Can any one doubt that if these large locks were used to the best advantage, instead page 22 of less than 750,000 acres being under grain crops, we should have at least three or four million acres, with an exportation of five times the present quantity, and a result that instead of our population being about 600,000, it would be at least 2,000,000.

There are in the Colony about 260 holdings of freehold land, of 10,000 acres and upwards, containing a total of about seven million acres, and valued for property-tax purposes at about £15,500,000.

I cannot profess to have travelled much in New Zealand, but I have conversed with those who have, and their reports all concur that mile after mile of some of the best land in the Colony is locked up in these immense blocks, employing very little labour, and that land which would provide employment and happy homes for thousands is now left vacant and uncultivated.

This is the cause of the stagnation of the Colony, this is the cause of the depression, the occupation of these lands is the remedy, and the only remedy. Retrenchment will not avail. The most ardent advocate of retrenchment does not profess to be able to effect a saving of more than £150,000 a year, which would be a reduction of taxation of £1 for each adult in the Colony, and I will ask any reader of this pamphlet whether he would be greatly relieved by paying £1 per page 23 year less taxation. Protection will not restore prosperity. The encouragement of our manufactures is good, but however advisable it may be to increase our manufacturing population, it is to the development of our pastoral, agricultural, and mineral resources that we must look to restore prosperity to the Colony.

We have now to consider the manner in which these lands may be resumed by the State, so as to combine justice to the community with justice to the landholder.

The unearned increment which has accrued up to the present time cannot be interfered with tut the future increment must be secured to the State. In order to secure this, it will be necessary to at once fix the price at which the State will repurchase. This step will effectually close the door against any political influence being brought to bear respecting the price at which the laud shall be purchased. For my own part, and considering that the bulk of these lands is still in the same condition as when purchased, I am of Union that the present property-tax value would be a fair price for the Colony to pay for their resumption, but, whatever sum may be fixed upon, the property-tax should be the basis, with perhaps a definite percentage added.

After fixing the price, the next step would be to secure to the State the pre-emptive right to the repurchase of the whole of the blocks of above a page 24 certain area, say 10,000 acres. This pre-emptive right should be for a term of ten years. As before stated there are about 260 estates in the Colony which come within the scope of these proposals, containing about 7,000,000 acres, and valued under the property-tax at about £15,500,000.

To re-purchase the land at property tax value would necessitate the issue of four per cent, land debentures of about the value of £1,650,000 a year. The £100,000 extra would be for purchase of improvements, establishment of village settlements and construction of roads as hereinafter detailed. These debentures would be issued on the security of the land repurchased, the rentals of which lands should be specially applied to the payment of the interest and the re-purchase of the debentures.

In the present state of the money market these debentures with this security would be saleable at par, and it must be remembered that a very large portion of this money would be used to redeem mortgages, upon which an interest of from six to seven per cent. is being paid.

The administration should be non-political and might be placed under the control of three Commissioners for each island. These Commissioned would decide, after consultation with the various Land Boards, which blocks were to be re-purchased.

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Neither the Commissioners nor the Land Boards would have anything to do with the price of the land, which would as before stated be fixed by the legislature on the basis of the present property tax value. They would merely decide as to the blocks required for settlement from time to time.

After deciding upon the blocks of land to be repurchased, the Commissioners would give the landholder six months notice that it was their intention to purchase the land for the State. The landholder would have the right within three months of the receipt of such notice to select land from the block in the following proportions : On blocks of from ten to twenty thousand acres, one half; from twenty to fifty thousand acres, one third; and over fifty thousand acres, one fourth of the area of the whole block. The land so selected should be in one block, the length of which should not exceed three times the average breadth. The present landowner to have a ten years lease of the land so selected, at a rental of five per cent upon the price paid for the land, regard being given to the quality of the land selected, in proportion to the average quality of the land on the block. Should the landowner not select land the Commissioners will proceed to value the buildings and improvements upon the land, or in event of the landholder selecting land, the Commissioners will value the buildings and improvements on the land not selected by him.

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These improvements will be taken over at a percentage above property tax value, or at a valuation, as should have been decided by the legislature.

The Commissioners would then proceed to subdivide the block according to the quality of the land and position. The necessary roads to give access to the various sub-divisions would he laid out, formed, and metalled. The cost of constructing the roads, which might be done by village settlers, would then be added to the cost of the land, and the rentals of the various subdivisions would be calculated so that the total rental of the block should not return less than five per cent, upon the total amount.

This rental would from the first give a margin of one per cent, for expenses and administration. By this means no additional burden would be thrown upon the colony. The increased railway receipts, the customs duties, the increased exports would be clear profit to the community, reducing the burden of taxation, while the increase of population would give a larger market for our local manufactures.

The leases would be for a term of ten years with right of renewal for a further term of ten years, at a rental of five per cent, upon the then value of the land. All buildings and improvements would be the personal property of the page 27 tenant, and the rental for the second and succeeding terms would be calculated solely upon the capital value of the land. This new value would be declared at the end of the ninth year of the current lease, and notice given to the tenant by that date of the rental for the next ten years. If the rental was considered too high, the tenant would have to lodge an appeal within three months and the case would be considered by a court in the same way as an appeal against excessive rating is decided now. If the court reduced the rental to an amount satisfactory to the tenant he would continue in occupation for the next term of ten years. If the court did not reduce the rental or did not reduce it to an amount satisfactory to the old tenant the land would be advertised by the State as to let, at the rental fixed by the court, subject to the payment by the incoming tenant of the value of the improvements.

If no new tenant came forward on these terms, then the old tenant would continue to hold the land at the old rental, subject to six months notice. This notice would be given on a tenant being found willing to take the land at the rental fixed by the court and pay a cash value for improvements.

Should the tenant wish to give up possession at the end of his lease he must give six months' notice to that effect. The land will then be advertised to let at the new rental, subject to payment for improvements.

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Should no tenant be found by the end of the term of the lease, the State will give compensation for improvements.

As settlement progressed there would be an increase in the rental value of the land, over and above the amount required to provide the 5 per cent, for interest and administration. Townships would be formed and the rentals from the town sections would belong to the community. The whole rentals I should propose to allot in the following manner;—5 per cent, interest on the capital expended to be set apart for interest and administration : one-third of the balance to go to the Consolidated Revenue of the country; one-third to be applied to the re-purchase of the debentures, which debentures should not be cancelled but held by the Commissioners until such time as the whole debentures issued should have been re-purchased. The interest received by the Commissioners to be applied to the purchase of other debentures.

The remaining one-third should be local revenue for the district in which the land was situated, to be applied in lieu of or to assist local rates for roads, etc., or for charitable purposes.

And now I have laid before you my proposal, and I ask you to give it fair consideration. I have placed it before you in the form of a pamphlet, so that, as stated previously, it may be page 29 quietly and dispassionately considered. In your homes, your clubs, and your workshops the proposal can be discussed free from the excitement and interruption of a public meeting. If you think it for the good of the colony I ask you to support it. If otherwise it will be your duty to oppose it.

So far as my own view is concerned, after long [thought and anxious consideration, I am convinced that it is a just, practicable and permanent solution of the land question, and that its adoption would mean the removal of the present depression and the renewal of prosperity.

All classes would share in the benefit. All classes would participate in the increased value given to our land by settlement. We should be able to realise that our country was indeed ours pot only as a matter of sentiment but as an actual fact. All would have an interest in its development, and every increase in settlement, every extension of public works, every improvement in mechanical invention would be for the benefit of the whole community.

The increase in the rental value of the land would eventually abolish all forms of taxation, for it may be confidently predicted that as the population and settlement of the colony progressed, as the facilities for communication Increased, so the rental value of the land would improve, and this improved value would mean increased revenue.

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The future condition of the masses of our population is a matter for serious consideration, and unless some more just system of distribution of wealth is established, the masses will be forced lower and lower in the social scale.

An American poet some years ago wrote a poem on the future of machinery, and introduced these lines with reference to the development he foresaw in mechanical appliances,

"And soon the world may go and play,
And I'll do the work myself."

Year by year the labour-saving machines are multiplying. Year by year the proportion of manual labour required to produce certain results is becoming less and less, and unless some change is effected in the social system regulating the distribution of wealth we may soon read the lines of the poet with a slight but important variation,

"And soon the world may go and starve,
And I'll do the work myself."

The great factor in the unequal distribution of wealth, is the freehold tenure of land. This is the foundation upon which all other inequalities rest. By doing away with freehold tenure and substituting a just system of leasehold tenure we shall lay a firm foundation for our social structure and promote a vast and rapid settlement of the colony, in the benefits of which all classes will share.

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