POLITICAL NOTES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13880, 3 November 1910, Page 7

POLITICAL NOTES.

(SPECIAL TO "THE TRESS.") WELLINGTON, November 2, THE KINLOCH ESTATE.

The Lands Committee reported today upon tho petition of Thos. White, jtin., and five other tenants on the Kinloch Estate, who asked for an enquiry into tho position of the tenants of the Kinloch Estate who have exchanged the lease-in-pcrpetuity for Vie renewable lease. The coinmitteo expressed the opinion that the matter should be referred to the Government, with a view that the petitioners be supplied with the information asked for in the petition. Mr T. E. Taylor said that considerable permanent reductions had been made in the rents of the original lessees, but sine© that time a number of gambles in the leases had taken place. Some of the tenants who had obtained reductions wero now asking very large sums by way of goodwill. Everything went to show that the reductions should never have been made. The country almost had a right to ask the tenants to payup on the basis of the original rentals. Mr R. Heaton Rhodes said that several tenants had sold out at enhanced values for their goodwill. The present tenants, however, were asking not for a further reeluction, but for an enquiry as to tho basis of the reductions made." What they would do then was another matter. The Hon. T. Y. Duncan asked Mr Taylor what he had mad© by tho purchase and sale of the land on the Cashmere Hills. Mr Taylor said he had made nothing at all out of it. Mr Duncan said it was reported that Mr Tavlor had made a large sura out of it. Mr Taylor: You are foolish enough to believe anything. THE LICENSING BILL. Notice has been given by Mr Poole that when the Licensing Bill is in committee, ho will move a rather drastic amendment to strike out the provision that every vote in favour of national prohibition shall bo a vote in favour of local No-license, and every vote against national prohibition shall be in favour of local license. The effect of this amendment would be to separate the national and local option issues.