THE FREEHOLD TENURE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12536, 25 June 1901, Page 6

THE FREEHOLD TENURE.

With characteristic promptness, Mr Charles Lewis has furnished us with his authority for implying that" the Premier is in favour of giving Crown tenants the option of acquiring the freehold of their holdings. He has quoted Mr Seddon correctly. When speaking on the second reading of the Land for Settlements Consolidation Bill last session, the Premier said; “that the conversion of leaseholds into freeholds is bound to come sooner or later.” Wt do not know, we confess, what he intended to convey by these word's, but to ascertain. Lis views with regard to the freehold tenure wo must read a little further. Mr Lewis has taken an isolated sentence from a report that extends over three pages of “Hansard.” “But,” Mr Seddon continued, “I would warn honourable members, and I would warn the honourable member for Hawke’s Bay—and I know he would not wilfully bring about what bo knows is detrimental to some parts of the colony, his own. district in particular—if you give the right to acquire the freehold to these leaseholders the result will be you will have one buying out another, until you have large estates again. And then it will be a question of evolution. You will have to pass more drastic •legislation, to cause a reversion to the state of things whldh is now being brought about., If you give a man the freehold, with, the absolute right to do wlithi his land as he likes, he' will sell it to his neighbour, and so the practice will continue, until, with the importation of capital into the transaction, there will return the building up of estates. ... The only means of retaining close settlement and preventing the swallowing up of small 1 farms is by having Crown tenants.” It will be noticed that the continuation of JMr-Seddon’s remarks.put an entirely- dif-

ferent complexion on the sentence quoted by Mr Lewis. That gentleman is placing a strained construction on our words when he asserts that we accused' himrof tmtruthfulness; what we did say was that he was approaching very closely to one of the practices he attributed to the Premier; but if he has no better authority than Mr Set den’s speech of last October for implying that the Government has lost faith in it/’own land policy, he must not be surprised if we arc a little taken aback by the efforts of his imagination.