PREMIUMS DEMANDED FROM BALLOTEES FOR LAND

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22654, 3 June 1948, Page 4

PREMIUMS DEMANDED FROM BALLOTEES FOR LAND

NEW SETTLEMENT PROBLEM

A practice which has developed recently of requiring ex-servicemen ballotees to make deposits of substantial sums before being admitted to ballots for sections gave rise to spirited discussion at a meeting of the Gisborne Returned Services’ Association executive hold last evening, when, in the light of information published by the Lands Department, the executive suspended a previous decision concerning a remit which is to come before the annual conference of the New Zealand R.B.A. in Wellington this month.

The remit asked for action condemning the practice of conducting premium ballots, on the grounds that the premiums must exclude a considerable number of men who had little or no private finance, yet. who had the experience and capacity to make good farmers under the Government’s scheme of rehabilitation by land settlement.

In the earlier discussion a majority of the executive took the view that where land was purchased at a cost which with development charges added, would considerably exceed the maximum of the land-settlement loan—the maximum for sheepfarming being £6250 and that for dairying £sooo—no objection could be taken to the Government policy of asking the prospective settler to put in his own stake. Deposits up to £ 1000 Required

This view was founded on the belief that only in odd cases would the Lands Department require deposits from prospective ballotees A.t last night's meeting, however, a long list of advertisements of ballots published in an Auckland newspaper was produced as evidence that premium ballots were not merely occasional occurrences.

In every instance covered by the advertisements the prospective applicants were notified that substantial sums would have to be deposited as a ballot pre-requisite more particularly if the applicant proposed to enter ah agreement to take over the title

In one case the deposit on a leasehold tenure would be £SOO, and on a sale and purchase tenure £.1500 the aiea in this instance being 118 acres of dairying land

Nine sections at Te Puninga, near Morrinsville, were offered subject to a deposit of £250 to £750 on sale and purchase

Serious Threat to State Policy

Others carried deposit conditions calling for the production of sums up to £IOOO by prospective ballotees This evidence was considered to indicate that premiums on ballots had become a general practice rather than an isolated occurrence

The effect of premium ballots as a general practice would be to make a large proportion of land-seeking Kiwis ineligible for the rehabilitation assistance which they had been promised and for which they had submitted to grading on the basis of experience and personal capacity. The view expressed by the Gisborne R.-S.A. executive was that a clear statement of policy should be asked for by the N.Z.R.S.A. annual conference, in representations to the Government.

The comment was made that unless a large proportion of the ballots held were made free of premiums the whole fabric of rehabilitation by way of land settlement was likely to collapse