FARMERS’ UNION

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2093, 30 May 1907, Page 1

FARMERS’ UNION

WELLINGTON PROVINCIAL CON-

FERENCE.

“LAND RAFFLE SYSTEM.”

Press Association

WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The animal conference of delegates from the branches in Wellington provincial district of the New Zealand Framers’ Union opened to-day at Levin. The President, Mr J.G-Wil-son, in the course of Ins annual address, said with reference to the Land Bill that there was certainly a bona fide desire lor land—-a desire which was now met by the great raffle system. The public was not allowed to conduct a raffle without a permit from the Government, but tlio Government itself perpetuated the system. The desire for land was only partly appeased by this system of Government raffle, and the bona fide settler competent to work the land was usually pushed out by the speculator. Whatever benefit the ballot sj stem had been in the past, it was now a failure. At po time in the history of the Union had there been greater necessity for calm judgment and fair criticism in placing the true position of the land before the colony. The Union, by circulating a "pamphlet dealing with tlio question, liud,' helped materially to show the public what the Land Bill really meant. At present there were three big papers in New Zealand which wore favorable to the Land Bill and against the Union’s platform, two in Wellington null one in Christchurch. Each of these papers owned land of the value of £20,000 or £25,000, yet the Union would not term them monopolists, although they were not as a rule very precise about the terms they applied to the Union and those associated with it. They were very free in speaking of the land monopolist in the country-, with his £IO,OOO worth of property, but they had nothing to say about themselves, with £25,000 worth In tho towns.