248 



SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



belong. The following tables, taken from the most recent official 

 statistics of the Ministry of Agricultui-e, show the differences between 

 the number of occupying owners and of their holdings in the years ]913 

 and 1921 respectively: — 



Separate Occupations. 



That the occupying owners should ha.V6 increased during the last 

 eight years by 49 per cent, and the acreage which they occupy by 

 nearly 100 per cent, is indicative of the augmented strength, numerical 

 and geographical, of a class which was once deemed to be the backbone 

 of the nation. If many of the new occupying owners are to secure 

 permanent stability in then- present position, it is urgently desirable that 

 the Government should afford them credit on easy terms in order toj 

 enable them to discharge gradually and without undue embarrassment | 

 the debts outstanding in respect of their recent purchases. The absence 

 in this country of Land Banks similar to those existing for this purpose 

 in several Continental countries is hampering alike to food output and 

 to' financial security. 



So, too, the long overdue revision of the present system of Local | 

 Taxation has become a matter of urgent necessity. A system which I 

 dates from a period when real estate was the almost exclusive source J 

 of national wealth is indisputably inequitable at a time when, as now, 

 it comprises about one-tenth only of that assessable to income tax, and; 

 especially so in the case of agricultural land, which represents less than 

 one-eighth of the total property assessable to local rates, and upon which 

 the burden falls with particular severity, owing to the large area of 

 rateable property required for the purpose of a business yielding a 

 relatively small income (see Appendices I. and II.). 



The annual aggregate assessment to income tax in respect of the 

 ownership of land under Schedule A was by a curious coincidence almost 

 identical in the years 1814-15 ^nd 1913-14— namely 37,0OO,O00L (It 

 rose gradually from the former year until it reached its maximum of 

 52,0O0,0O0L 'in 1879-80) (see Appendix III.). 



The capacity of landowners as a class to direct the organisation of 

 agriculture must depend in some measure, as Continental experience 

 demonstrates, upon their capacity to organise themselves. Otherwise 



