NATIONAL ENDOWMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 253, 23 October 1907, Page 7

NATIONAL ENDOWMENTS.

1 THE PBEMEEK'S VIEWS. | ■ SPEECHES ON THE SECOND BEADING, (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The National Endowment Bill, under ■which nine million acres of Crown land are proposed to be set aside as an endowment for educational and old a»e pension purposes, was debated in the' House of Representatives this evening. The Premier, in moving the second reading of the measure, referred to the fact that it had been sent to a select committee of the House and came back minus the schedule, which detailed the 9,0,00,000 acres of land proposed to be set aside for endowment purposes. Though it would be quite possible to put the bill through the House , without a schedule indicating the total area of land proposed to be set aside, as well as the districts in which it was situated, it would be more advantageous and infinitely more desirable from a working point of view to have the land earmarked. When in committee upon the bill, he proposed to move an amendment in this direction. The areas proposed to be set aside were allocated as follows:—Auckland, 000,000 acres; Hawke's Bay, 135,000 acres; Taranaki. 90,000 acres; Wellington, 90,000 acres; Nelson, 1.350,000 acres; Marlborough, 450,000 acres; Westland, 1,035,000 acres; Canterbury, 1,500,000 acres; Otago, 2,250,000 acres; Southland, 900.000 acres; total, 9,000,000 acres. He would like to draw attention to what the revenue from the 9,000.000 acres was at the present time. The total reven {9 & the shape of rents coming from leases amounted to £49,031. £35,000 per annum of the total of £49,000 of rentals received from these nine'million acres came from the provincial districts of Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, leaving £12,000 for the whole of the other districts. He desired to draw members' attention to the growth that had taken place in the education vote during the last five years. In 1.002-3 the total expenditure from the Consolidated FunA for education was £566,666, increasing during the intervening years by £22,619, £61,101, £03.885, and in 1906----7 by £99,309. In 1903 the amount paid for old age pensions was £213,945. Last year it had increased to £319,434. Taking the difference bet-ween the five yearly periods lie had named in regard to j education and old age pensions, they had an increase during these five years of £350,000, an average increase in these two important departments of £70,000 a year. Although some members -would 6ay that the setting aside of nine millioij acres, bringing in £50.000 a year, wag a very small provision for education and old age pensions, there was a. recognition. lof the fact that the only way to get progressive legislation on the Statute Book was by a spirit of compromise. Mr Massey said they had heard a good deal from the Premier about comproI mises. He (the Leader of the Opposition) .was not much of a believer in compromises. He felt that the people should have an opportunity of expressing an opinion with respect to the measure. Were endowments always a success? He ; remembered the case of, ( the u University endowments, .wjfjclij legislation had to be passed enabling, the Colonial Treasurer to advance money upon the revenue obtained from the land. He would admit that Canterbury was an exception in regard to endowments, and that they had been to a certain extent a success, but what waa possible on the fertile lands of Canterbury was not so in the North, where., in his own electorate, there were thousands of acres of endowment areas lying idle, a breeding-ground for noxious weeds. The Auckland University possessed 30,----354 acres of endowment land, from which the gross total revenue was £41G, practically all of which was royalty from a coal seam which happened to exist on the property. The Auckland Education Board was even worse off, for it possessed 17,865 acres of endowment land, which produced absolutely no revenue. He was quite willing that the whole of the revenue and capital value should be handed over to the Education and Old Age Pensions Departments, because it would make no difference until the* revenue became greater than the expenditure, which would not be for a thousand years at least.

Mr Baume said it was after all a question of whether the land was taken up, not a question of tenure, except that if taken up under the freehold tenure,)the task of getting rid of it would be very much easier than under the leasehold. He hoped the Government would reconsider this matter, and not attempt to take lands in the Auckland province which were promised to them by the late Premier to be opened up under the freehold tenure.

Mr Herries, quoting from British statistics, maintained that the value of endowments of country lands could not -be taken as a safe basis for estimating the income of any endowment at all. The income from rural endowments in England was becoming less year by year. The endowment system was not a good system if they wanted a good basis for paying any definite sum to any definite object.

Mr Foole considered that thn time had come when the cities would not tolerate the obsolete proposals made by some gentlemen who presumed to he leaders of public opinion and enuneiators of a progressive policy. The time of Toryism had gone by, the days of the gentlemen who had been the votaries of antique ideas was done, and anything of a conservative tendency would be speedily laid aside. The time was coming when the lands proposed to be set aside now looked upon as being of only a nominal value would be very valuable, for towns and cities would spring up in the interior. He -was a freeholder in the interests of the people collectively. If it was a good thing for the individual to have the freehold he should have it. If profits were going to accnie to the individual who had a small freehold, was it not well that they as custodians of the people's interests, and as national freeholders should lay claim to a certain area to be put aside as the people's freehold, so that the profits resulting would go towards the maintenance of desirable institutions.

The debate was adjourned at 12.10 a.m.