BIG LAND DEAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1908, Page 2

BIG LAND DEAL

REDUCED FROM THOUSANDS TO HUNDREDS. Judgment was given in the Native Land Court at Auckland on Saturday, says the Herald, in a curious case involving a claim for compensation for land taken for railway purposes. The claim was made by Mr. Lovett, and related to land in the Pukeni part. The amount asked for was £32,450, and a number of witnesses were called to swear that this was v fair estimate. The court came to the conclusion, however, that it was an unreasonable claim, and allowed the comparatively small sum of £225, and ordered £60 to be deducted from this amount for the Railway Department's costs. The principal item in the claim was one of £31,250 for the one and a quarter million cubic yards of stone on the property. Mr. Lovett said he would have made this profit out of the stone by delivering it as broken metal. The court stated, however, that haying taken into account the enormous quantities of limestone in the Te Kuiti district, and the loss at the present time with which it is worked, and the chance in the future of the plant being increased or tho stone >being more expeditiously worked, the chances of opposition in the trade, etc., they must disallow this item of £31,250. The only items we can allow are : (a) Loss of Jand ; (b) loss of the spring ; (c) expenses of moving stable and fence. As to item (a), the Crown claims that it is entitled to take onetwentieth (nine acres) of the land for railway pui poses free of cost, as fifteen years had not elapsed since the title was first issued.