CROWN TENANTS.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20103, 5 December 1930, Page 24

CROWN TENANTS.

MANY APPLICATIONS FOR ASSISTANCE. COMMISSIONER'S OPINIONS. "We've had bad times before, but this time people are all recognising tjic problems before them and preparing to meet them. That seems to me the most hopeful sign at present," said the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr W. Stewart When interviewed by a Pres« renortor yesterday. "Half tho trouble," he contmued, "is caused by people becoming too pessimistic." The Commissioner said that there had been considerably more applications for relief received from Crown tenants this season than was normal. The Minister could, he explained, either remit the regular payments or postpone them on the recommendation of the Board in cases of absolute inability to pay, some natural disaster or what could be considered other sufficient cause. During the season in many cases a postponement ot the payments had been granted in prospect of an improved season next year.

hope indeed that there will bo no moratorium," he remarked. It would not affect the Crown, he continued, but private mortgagees would suffer and in for™ 11 w " ul<3 onJ y mean that the vvw' S - 7° UIC SUffcr > to °" As was, vvhere interest payments were regular few investors who had their money in and were likely to withdraw it, but otlL m( 5 ra t l * llll Was enfor ced all those other investors, who might otherwise to V seek V o B t, m land ' Would bo certain to bcek other investments. A moratorium would simply mean that canitnlVr themselves with less capital than ever. He remarked that land prices had as yet varied little. There were, of course fewer sales and what there were were more difficult to make, but there was little drop m the prices. The Department had a few city properties on hand thL!£ ey i T 6 Stm sellin e steadily though slowly and during the last few months there had been practically no change in values.

lie quoted the opinion of Lord Barnby, who recently visited Christchurch, that the causes of the world-wide depression were the banking interests, the absence of any increase in the quantity of gold available in proportion to the quantity of goods on the market, the fact that the wholesalers and retailers were not carrying their usual quantity of stock and the international trade barriers. These were the causes and there was no doubt about it that they were being faced seriously in all countries and that every effort was heine made to cure them.