POSITION OF DEFERRED PAYMENT SETTLERS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 674, 30 January 1885, Page 22

POSITION OF DEFERRED PAYMENT SETTLERS

MR JUSTICE WILLIAMS’ OPINION (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Invercargill, January 23. The following is the text of Mr JusticeWilliams’ opinion which was sent to theSouthland Land Board :—“ In pursuance of the 33rd section of the Land Act, 1877, Icertify my opinion upon the case submitted tome by the Land Board of the district of Southland to be as follows :—lt is beyond question that persons who took up land on deferred payment after the Act of 1879 came into operation, and prior to the Act of 1884* are still entitled to a grant under section 9 of the former Act. Their cases come within: the spirit and the letter of the saviag clause in section 7 of the Act of 1884. To come to any other conclusion would be to place the Legislature in the position of a dishonest landlord, who had agreed to give hi 3 tenant a title on certain conditions, but afterwards, when the tenant, in the faith of the agreement, had performed these conditions,, refused to carry out his bargain. Ido not see how there could ever have been Jany doubt on the subject.—(Signed) Joshua Stran«3EWILLIAMS.”