BETTER TENURE SOUGHT.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19391, 17 August 1928, Page 15

BETTER TENURE SOUGHT.

EDUCATION LEASES. CHANGED FARMING METHODS. [TBS 7BESS Special Service.] WELLINGTON, August 16. The old question of education endowment leases cropped up in the House of Eepresentatives again to-day, A question of policy being involved, the Lands Committee reported that it had no recommendation to make with respect to a petition from a number of Southland farmers asking for an improvement in their present tenure. Mr A. Hamilton (Wallace) said the question involved that of freehold versus leasehold, but it also brought to the forefront the subject of a good tenure for farm land v s. The matter had been discussed in Southland lately, and he suggested that it would be wise for Parliament to give farmers as good a tenure as possible, consistent with safeguarding the rights of the Crown. Some of the farmers had been on the leases for forty years, and the main reason they were now asking for a change of tenure was because of difference in methods of farming. In the old days the land was mainly used for cropping, the district affected being one of the best cropping areas in New Zealand. Leasehold was all right for grain lands because in a sense the rent could be taken out of the land, and the land punished to such an extent that at the end of the lease there was a chance of obtaining a renewal at a cheaper rate. The Leader of the Opposition: Are these forty-two years leases? Mr Hamilton: They are for twentyone years, with right of renewal for a similar term. As an instance of how the conditions of the leases failec". to encourage farmers to improve their lands, Mr Hamilton mentioned a case of two men who had taken up adjoining holdings at a rental of four and six pence per acre. One man at the end of the first term had a better farm than when he had started, and for the renewed lease his rent was raised to seven and six an acre. The other man punished his land in the last years of hh lease, and obtained a renewal at slightly under three shillings an acre.. That was all right from the point of view of the bad farmer. To-day farming had changed,, and unless the farmers improved their pastures by top-dressing they would not be able to get the best out of the farm. Their leases did not include pastures as improvements, and the farmers might therefore lose the value of the improvements that belonged to him. Mr Hamilton said the farmers had asked for the freehold, and failing that a sixty-six years' lease, with compensation for improvements. He thought encouragement should be given to the farmers to make the farms their own, and suggested that that could be done only by giving them security for the value of their labour and imprpvements.

The Minister for Lands, the Hon. Mr McLeod, said that an amending Act of last year made full provision for the perpetual leasing of these lands, with revaluation of the Crown's • interest every twenty-one years. To secure a new lease under these terms the present leases must be surrendered. In the early days cropping was the main object of the lessee, and to ensure cropping, pastures were specifically excluded from the schedule of, improvements. In the North Island it was stated in the leases'that compensation would not be granted in respect of clearing the bush and grassing, and leases under these terms were sold at a rental of threepence an acre. Had compensation for bushfelling and grassing been included, there was no doubt up to two shillings an acre would have been bid for the leases. The endowment Commissioners in the various education districts had different ideas, which were reflected in the different leases, and the aim of the Lands Department was to bring about uniformity, •