NEW ZEALAND 



ability to pay/' "to free the small man'' and "to burst 

 up monopolies," and its cardinal features are the exemp* 

 tion of improvements of small owners and traders, and the 

 special pressure put on the big monopolists and corpora- 

 tions and on absentees. One of the great objects of the 

 law is to make it expensive and unprofitable to hold land 

 in large tracts for speculative purposes. The land system 

 of the country has been greatly effected with the ideas of 

 nationalization of the soil, leasing in perpetuity restriction 

 of area and of transfer, resumption and division of over- 

 grown estates, aboHtiou of large holdings, close settlement 

 under improvement and residential conditions, co-operative 

 development of small farms, settlements, suburban homes 

 for workingnien, easy access to the soil for all, especially 

 for those of small means, preference for the landless, 

 gradual absorption of the unearned increment for the use 

 of the public— the land for tlie people in every way and not 

 for the few. There are three ways of overcoming land 

 monopoly : (i) Confiscation. (2) Pressure through tax- 

 ation, etc. (3) Resumpiiou or state purchase b}^ agree- 

 ment or compulsion. New Zealand, while using the 

 second, relies largely on the third, which meets the need 

 more definitely and certainly than any ordinary tax and 

 more justly than confiscation. To meet the demand for 

 land and break up monopoly, favor the settlement of men 

 of small means and move toward the nationalization of the 

 soil, the Ballance Ministry in 1890 agreed on the policy : 

 (i) Of putting pressure on the large holders through pro- 

 gressive taxation. (2) Of conserving the remaining public 

 lands for genuine settlement. (3) Of limitation of the 

 area of holdings and of the right of transfer. (4) Of 

 repurchasing and dividing large estates, and (5) of 

 establishing the true perpetual lease (with periodic revalu- 

 ations and no right to purchase the freehold), as the tenure 

 on which public lands and resumed lands should be taken. 

 The first of these aims was accomplished in 1S91 and 



