LAND SPECULATORS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 77, 2 April 1910, Page 9

LAND SPECULATORS.

« LAND BOARD'S DECISION. _____ FIRM ACTION TO BE TAKEN. | A determined stand has been taken by the Wellington District Land Board to put down speculation in Crown land leases. The board met on Thursday, and ordinarily it despatches its business before lunch. But it was not before yesterday afternoon that the board rose, and it settled its ordinary business in the morning sitting. Tho greater part of the time was taken up in investigating applications for transfer. Some of these tha board, through the Commissioner (Mr. Jas. Mackenzie), had reason to suspect were entirely speculative. ll was elicited that some applicants, who are successful in drawing quite big sections have no other intention but to tell the goodwill of euch lands, and to pocket the proceeds on having effected transfers. In some cases, it was 6aid at the meeting, not an axe had been put to a tree, not a slab or shingle put up, nothing at all done on the sections by way oi improvement, as required under the conditions of lease. Then a purchaser comes along — a bona fide settler, and a man of means. He want* the section, and will pay for tho transfer some £300, £400, or even £500. Tho holder comes before the board and asks for a transfer. "What." asked the Commissioner, "is the board to do? Hero ih a really good man wanting the land; he has been unsuccessful iii draviing a section; and thia is his chance of setting one." The board has decided, and it made it unmistakably clear yesterday, that it will do everything in its power to discourago speculation of this kind. To do this it has retolved that transfers fhall only be granted upon the condition that tho purchase price for such transfers shall not exceed the value of the improvements on the sections. If nothing has been done then nothing is to be paid by the transferee. This is in order to ensure the right man, the bona fide settler, the man who will work the l«nd, getting the section. "This board," said the Commissioner, "is determined to stop speculation of this sort. Such speculation penalises the man who wants the land— and Jand is becoming scarcer every day, and it encourages wasters and sluggards to take up blocks with no intention of utilising them. The land mu?t not be locked up in this fashion, and* the board, while endeavouring to help tho genuine settler in every possible way, will see, as far a^ lies in its power, that the people's land is not made use of by speculators."