The Option of Purchase.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 278, 29 May 1907, Page 2

The Option of Purchase.

One of the worst features about the new Land Act is that it debars everybody but men of means from ever acquiring the freehold. Undoubtedly tJie most popular form of tenure in fore© in New Zealand was the system of deferred payment, under which a man without means could make a home for himself on Crown land, and pay off the capital value in small instalments. In lieu of that the last Government brought in the " occupation with right of_purchase" system, which, although not as good as the one for which it was substituted, was a very useful method of land acquisition. But now it is proposed to abolish this and every other system under which Crbwn land is at present- soHleil, and only allow the 6G yrars' lease, with forfeiture of improvements after the lease has been once renewed. There will not be much interference with the freeholder who possesses the wherewithal to purchase |land, up to £15,000 in value at any rate, or the forced sale of portions of the larger properties will provide land for the cash, purchaser. But that wHI not remedy the grievance — -uffder which tho man who is working his way up in the world is suffering from, and the spectacle of a democratic Government being responsnble for depriving the worker of the right to obtain the freehold because he is unable to pay cash down on the nail for it.