CROWN LANDS REVENUE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21743, 7 March 1934, Page 8

CROWN LANDS REVENUE

One of the most cheering official announcements that has been made for some time is that there has been a substantial increase in the revenue received for the first ten months of the financial year from Crown tenants and soldier settlers. The total is £1.690,430, compared with £1,404,12-3 for the corresponding period last year, an increase of 20.38 per cent. The drift has been very serious indeed, the swelling sum represented by default adding heavily to the financial embarrassments of the Government. The reI ceipts in the Crown lands branch for the last five years were as follows: 19*29, £ 1,290,536: 1930. £1.257.106: 19-31, £1,005,700; 1932, £776,459; 1933, £742,820. The corresponding figures in the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Account are as follows : 1929. £1.963,653, of which £1,205,592 was on capital account and £"757.761 described as "revenue"; 1930, £1,751,526 (£1,054,123 and £727.703): 1931, £1,354,075 (£749.090 ' and £604,955); 1932, £1,195,532 (£665,396 and £527,436):; 1933, £1,113.361 (£'625,316 and £455,045). At January 31 last the aggregate improvement was £286,307, which under the circumstances is highly satisfactory though far from a safe level. The rise in the price of wool must be partly responsible for the change, but other factors are operating. One is the insistence of the Minister of Lands that settlers must make an effort to pay to the limit of their capacity. Unquestionably there had grown up a spirit of resistance among a section of the Crown tenants and mortgagors. The bad example of one man seemed to have its effect upon others. There were such cases as that of a settler who offered to pay so much provided arrears were wijped out. If this kind of thing had been permitted it would not have been long before there would have been an insupportable burden of loss. As it is a huge sum is in arrears, amounting in the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Account at March 31 last to £794.964 and in the Crown Lands Account to £1,010,979. But this is not all. There have been remissions of rents and reductions of capital running to high figures. Because of such permanent readjustments of liabilities the future revenue, even with complete economic recovery, will not reach the former totals, and under the most favourable circumstances, therefore, the taxpayer will! have to carry what is tantamount to a rise in the national debt. However, the drift has been arrested, and one of the causes is that stricter business principles are being adopted by the Lands Department.