"UGLY LAND TRANSACTION"

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 26, 31 January 1913, Page 2

"UGLY LAND TRANSACTION"

THE SOUTHLAND "SALE."

AN INDICTMENT OF THE MASSEY LAND 'ACT.

The following leading article appeared recently in the Wellington Evening Post, under the heading of "An Ugly Land Transaction" : "In Saturday's issue we published the remarkable story of a Southland lease-m-perpetuity. the conversion of which has been effected in circumstances which suggests a serious leakage of the public estate. If the new Land Act operates in the way that the

Southland advices represent—and in-j dependent inquiries that we have ; made confirm that view—then the; difference between the "Ward law and the~ Massey law, as regards the conver- j sion of leases-in-perpetuity, is as fol- j lows: Under the former, a lessee-in-perpetuity could purchase the freehold by paying the capital value (less improvements) which—vide section 177 of the Land Act, 1908—shall include the value of all minerals other than gold and silver. Under the Massey Act the price which a lessee-in-perpet-uity pays for the freehold is based-on the original value (surface only) at which ho took up the lease, and the freehold carries with it the right to coal on or under the surface, and, it seems, to any minerals other than gold and silver. Both Acts sanction the acquirement of the freehold by a lessee-in-perpetuity. Under both of them the Crown parts with its right to the coal. But while Sir Joseph Ward insisted on the value of the coal being paid for by the lessee in acquiring the freehold, Mr Massey, who repealed section 177, allows—in fact, compels—the State to part with the coal for nothing. The lessee-in-per-petuity pays for surface value only; and it is alleged that in Southland a lessee, by, paying £46 16s, has purchased his leasehold of 173 acres, the freehold rights over which entitle him to mine for coal of an estimated value of £10,000 to £15,000. We are not in a position to vouch for the valuation of the mineral. The point does not lie in that, but in the principle; and there seems to be no doubt that Mr Massey's Act compels the State to sell to a- lessee-in-perpetuity, at surface value, land containing coal or minerals (other than gold and silver) of any value whatever. We say 'compels' advisedly, for as soon as the lessee gives notice to the Commissioner of Crown Lands of his intention to exercise the right of purchase, such notice jis conclusive, and neither the Commissioner nor any else has discretionary power. 'The delivery of the notice to the Commissioner,' says Section 31 (sub-Section 2) of the Land Act of 1912, 'shall constitute a contract between the lessee and the Crown for the purchase and sale of the said land.'

"To give a lessee-in-perpetuity the right to acquire the freehold' was the initial surrender. Mr Massey's plan to purchase on the original value basis reduced the operation to a political gift; still, it was conducted in the open, and a majority of Parliament supported it. But what shall be said of this inner development, for which no one has the hardihood to openly appeal? When one sees the Government compelling the State, at the point of the pistol, to part with known coal values for nothing, its first impression is that the wording of the law is faulty through oversight. But this defence is not open to Mr Massey, considering Mr Hanan's emphatic warning during a debate on the Bill. Mr Massey must have known that his Bill made a present to certain lessees I of certain coal measures which belonged to the State and to which the lessees had no shadow of a claim. Possibly the line of defence will be that the minerals in land are an unknown quantity and that the stipulation that they must be paid for is indefinite and a restriction upon purchase. But does that argument justify the giving away for nothing of minerals known Jto exist? Would Mr Massey sell his Mangere farm for its cow or sheep value if he found beneath the surface profitable riMnefafe, ihe exact value of which might not be immediately definable? But the have never been willing that the Crown as landlord should enjoy the privileges which they would exercise in their private landlordry; and one of'the results is this extraordinary omission in the 1912 Act, ■ which repealed Sir Joseph Ward's section, and- left the coal measures to look after themselves. It is understood that there are a number of mineral-bearing 1.i.p., areas, and' the law seems to make it definite that the lessee's notice of intention to purchase is conclusive. Parliament, at the instigation of Mr Massey, has bound itself hand and foot. The State has given up what no one had the assurance to ask for, and the Crown tenants have received from Mr- Massey the whole of their price, .and more."