A WAR-TIME FOOD POLICY
Sot,—Sir Daniel Hall, in his article on the above subject, notes that price and rent of farming land in certain areas is showing a tendency to rise. This demonstrates the crux of the whole agricultural problem, which is that unless our system, of land tenure is drastically amended every benefit conferred by the State will tend to fail in its alleged objective, and to become absorbed in rent and price of land, and thus to leave the tenant farmer in a worse position than ever.
I think he gives the wrong reason when he says that much land is under-farmed because the "occupiers lack the means . . . capital, material, energy and knowledge . . . to farm for maximum production." I know of scores of tenant farmers with ample capital, energy, material and knowledge who do not farm to maximum capacity because to do so means making great improvements on their farms, and if they • do so they will inevitably in the end be made to pay either a higher rent or, if the farm is sold, a higher price, and will thereby be punished for farming properly.
To say the Holdings Acts protect the tenant is idle. These are very weak and require drastic amendment. Much of the under-production is due to defective drains, dilapidated, in- - convenient and inadequate buildings and fences, and lack of shelter plantations. Much of these, including practically all the /drains, were originally provided by the tenants two generations ago, and duly confiscated by the landlords. Tenants now will not provide these things, and it is the land- lords' job to do so. They do not do so.
As a single example of the futility of the land laws, it is not at present possible for a tenant to claim compensation for improving permanent pasture, becaus: it is not an improve- ment mentioned in the Schedule to the Act. A tenant has no security of tenure, so cannot take long views, and in view of present instability he fears to find himself with a long lease. In fact, the landlord and tenant system, even if amended, is the worst possible, and under it we can never get the land developed as it should be. In my opinion, the best system is occupying ownership, clear of debt, with mortgaging or burdening of land made illegal, except for definite improvements.
The only mortgage otherwise allowed should be to allow the sitting tenant to mortgage to half its value his own farm, on purchase. All mortgages should be for twenty years only, repayable by instalments, and all estates now mortgaged to an extent exceeding two-thirds of their value, or where the annual service of debts and burdens exceeds half the rent, should be sold compulsorily. That in time would give us the occupying ownership, debt free, that we need. Everywhere I go I can see 8o per cent, of the occupying owners have vastly improved their farms in a way that no landlords will do and that no
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