The Northern Advocate THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1913. THE LAND BILL.

Northern Advocate, 11 September 1913, Page 4

The Northern Advocate THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1913. THE LAND BILL.

Some points about the Land Bill put forward by the Government on Tuesday evening are for the present not very clear, but the precis of the measure published in our news columns yesterday presents its salient features clearly enough for general understanding. On the whole it may be said that the Bill will be received with approval by the Ministerial following. It conforms in most respects with the party's pre-election pledges, and is clearly drafted with the single intention of extending beyond the limitations of the Act of 1912 the principle of freehold in respect to tenure. This is really the crux of the Bill. Under the legislation of last year the extension of the freehold was restricted to holders of lands held on lease-in-perpetuity other than , lands resumed under the Land for Settlement Act. This year the privilege is to be offered to holders of these settlement lands irrespective of whether the holdings are on l.i.p. 1 (999 years) or on renewable lease (33 years with revaluation). There is a nice point for argument as to the wisdom—and indeed, perhaps, as to the morality—of this step so far as it applies to land occupied on renewable lease, but in our judgment it is best, under all the surrounding circumstances, that there should be this simplification of tenux-e "and an end brought to a controversy which, to a very great extent, has been demoralising to the community ever since it commenced. The freehold is the best tenure for the occupier, and the best for the State. To the former the magic of ownership possesses a strong appeal; to the State there is no such thing as real alienation, for over all land, no matter what the tenure the authority of the Crown is supreme. There is nothing in the freehold to prevent the State securing everything j it had been the hope of some of the ( older land reformers to retain by the system of leasehold. Public policy being now directed to widening the option to the fee simple it is in the public interest that a clean sweep should'be made of the whole business and all land brought under the one, simple tenure which everyone can understand. In this respect the Bill now before the Legislature is a good one. There are other features of it that are not so admirable, and one at least on which a number of people will look with disfavour. We refer here to the methods of assessing the "present value" of 33 year leases, and, next, to the clause apparently designed to prevent aggregation. So far as the first of these limited matters is concerned the question of realisation at a "present value" determined by an actuarial computation of the relative interests of the lessee and the State in a 33 years lease, taking as a groundwork the difference between the land value at time of selection and the value, minus improvements, at the time of election to convert the tenure, is perhaps too involved for discussion except in an article devoted solely to that point. But the gravamen of the whole business is whether the option to convert a short lease of this kind should under any circumstances .become operative before the close of the period of lease—that is, before the first valuation. Certainly no private owner who had leased land for 33 years would be prepared to transfer to the tenant the fee-simple of the land at the capitalised value of the first year's rental plus the rela-

tive interest in the unexpired part of the lease unless, of course, the

said owner was urgently in need of funds or had made a particularly sharp deal. The owner would, undoubtedly, under normal conditions, await the expiry of the lease and dispose of the property at the values then prevailing. This we imagine should be the principle followed by the Crown in respect to these particular leases. There remains the "limitation of area clause," Mr Massey himself seems doubtful of this, and with some reason. This aspect of land legislation is extraordinarily difficult, and we fear the Prime Minister is no nearer a solution than other people have arrived after making efforts in that direction. The clause as it stands looks like

placing in the hands of the party politician an instrument of very gross corruption indeed and opening wide the door to blackmail whenever a transaction in land is known to be pending. Even if it be not so sinister as this, the clause is obviously a redundancy, since the Crown al-

possesses authority to acquire any land. Shorn of this objectionable feature the Bill would be greatly

improved