LAND FOR SETTLEMENT

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 60

LAND FOR SETTLEMENT

Two returns laid upon the table of the House of Representatives on Wednesday throw some light of a suggestive charac- ' ter on the working out of the policy embodied in the Land for Settlements Act. The first of these, which was v furnished to the order of the xiouse on the motion of Mr Tanner, shows that the. prices paid to the owners of resumed properties since the inception of the policy in question mounted up in the aggregate to £3,637,830, whereas the tax value of the properties represented was not more than £3,195,440 — a difference against the colony, or, ’ rather, against the tenants, of £442,390. Now, one of two things must be clear from this simple* statement of the case. Either the Chown has lost something dn the valuations, or the Crown tenants are going to lose a trifle. Fortunately, it is but a trifle whichever way it goes; but it provides another argument for the advocates of the freehold option. They will say, certainly, that the best thing for the tenant will be to get rid of his perpetual obligation to pay too much. The return also gives added force to the agitation for some more reliable system of valuation. It has to be borne in mind that there is more ; than meets the eye here; for the settlers have to pay, besides the interest on the excess over the real value -—assuming it to be the real value-—the cost of the subdivision and the reading. The compulsory resumptions are the gist of the second return to which we have alluded. This was supplied on the motion of Mr Lang. It shows that

eight estates (including Flaxbourne) have been acquired under the eompuleory clauses of the act at a cost of £800,427, on an aggregate taxation value of - s £621,089 —an excess of

£179,000, or about 40 per cent, of the whole excess of £442,390, as shown Above. The return shows an excess for every district except Westland, which achieves the distino-

tioix of being the only district that has lost the colony nothing under the re--sumption system. To he sure, the amount saved by Westland is but a paltry thousand pounds sterling; but it is "Westland’s own, m the presence of a universal excess. The important thing is that the compulsory side of the act has, with but a small fraction of the estates bought, come out with mo large a proportion as forty per cent, of the whole excess. There could be no stronger condemnation of the Judge-©um-assessor system by which these disputes about value are supposed to be equitably settled under the law. The Judge, of course, knows nothing whatever about the values, and has no means at all, worthy the name, of getting - at a rational opinion of his own about a matter in dispute between vast masses of experts who have a knowledge and a. familiarity with the subject, which forbids him to raise his head fiigh enough to even look at their owners. The assessors, on the other hand, are not judicial at all. By the very terms of their appointments they are partisans of the most pronounced Character; and this is called in our legislation a court of justice. The sooner that court is made more worthy ©f its name the better. That is the reform the need for which is plainly brought out by the return asked for by the member for Waikato. As for the general policy of the resumption of estates, one wonders naturally whether "there is anything in these returns to give us pause in the onward career marked out by the Government for the colony to follow. The answer to that question is embodied in the return of the results of the resumption policy. That policy has paid all it® charges, and left a handsome profit to the State, to boot. A bill introduced on Tuesday proposes to increase the limit of borrowing from half a million a year to three-quarters. If the /.disclosures made by the two re.turns /above alluded, to were evidence of disaster, the House mi "’o' <• si: ate about extending the borrow;;:- power. But results show a clear tin oflt. It : is therefore certain tb t • ’: •* ro-

turns Murw that the policy is not disastrous, but only a loser of some trifles that ought not to be lost. The limit of borrowing can therefore be quite safely increased. Half a million a year has done so well, in spate of the discrepancies of the valuation and purchase systems, that it will be well if fifty per cent;, were added to the amount of annual well-doing under the Land for Settlements Act.