The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1907. THE LAND BILL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 239, 9 October 1907, Page 4

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1907. THE LAND BILL.

The Minister of Lands made an extremely lucid reply to criticisms in/ Parliament upon the Land Bill, and/ in doing so cleared tip some points that were causing confusion, not only in the minds of some Members, bust also in the country. He said that in discussing the Bill Members had po a certain extent confused the Endowment Bill with the Laud Bill. The Government did not . propose to reduce the existing facilities for acquiring the freehold. The position at the present time in regard to lands put up under Part 111. of the Land Act was that the selector had the option of selecting between the cash system, occupation with right of purchase, and lease-in-perpetuity. These provisions remained as before, except the renewable lease as opposed to the lease-in-perpetuity. Tims, so far as Part 111. was concerned, the Government was not reducing the granting of the freehold in Crown land at all. With respect to the disposal of land under the Lands for Settlement Act, the Government was reducing the proposed term of lease from 999 years to 33 years with the right of perpetual renewal, but under the Lands for Settlement Act there had never been given to the tenant the right of acquiring the freehold. Therefore the Government was not taking away one single point which in the past applicants had been in the habit of enjoying in regard to the acquiring of the freehold of their tenure. Under the new Bill the Government extended'to the lease-in-per-petuity holders the right of getting the freehold at the present value of the land they owned. Reviewing then the whole position, the Government was leaving the right of freehold to Crown tenants for lands to be disposed of thereafter untrammelled, unaltered, and unrestricted, to what it was now. Thus those who discus- j sed this aspect of the land question with the notion in their minds that the Government proposals reduced j the right of getting the freehold did so under an entire misapprehension. This makes the whole position perfectly clear. Dealing further with the question of freeholds, Mr .McNab referred to a suggestion by Mr Hogg to grant small areas under freehold conditions, and he thought this feature woulcr play an important part in future land legislation. Precautions would, however, require to be taken to prevent aggregation of such lands, and he thoikght they would neeft to "pin the limitation of area to the title," and that first class lands should not exceed 640 acres, while 2000 and 5000 should be the limit for second and third class respectively. He believed that such a proposal would bring all the elements holding different views on this land question very much more on common grounds than they were at the present time. But this is entirely a question for the future.