THE GOVERNMENT LAND BILL. A CORRECTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6369, 11 July 1882, Page 4

THE GOVERNMENT LAND BILL. A CORRECTION.

TO THE EDITOR

Sib, —In my first letter to you on the Government Land Bill I was slightly inaccurate in stating the effect of one of the provisions affecting the manner in which the new rental for the second 21 years ia proposed to ba fixed.

It is perfectly true, as I pointed out, that nuither the Board nor the Governor, nor,, indeed, any other authority, has power to alter the rent as fixed by the nominee umpire, so far as the outgoing tenant is concerned. The outgoing tenant must either take the farm at the rental so fixed by the Governor's nominee, or his farm must go to public.competition. I, however, omitted to notice the' fact that in offering the lease to the public the Board has power to reduce the rent so fixed (sec. 37, sub. (a). A» a beautiful instance of " the way not to do it," I think this provision ia unrivalled. Suppose we have arrived at the end of the 21 years. Ths Governor's nominee fixes the rent at, say, £100 per annum. It is, in the opinion of the tenant, too high, and he refuses to take it. It is in the opinion of the Board, aIBO, either too high or not too high. If in its opinion not too high, the lessee gets no benefit. He must abide by the opinion of the nominee. If, on the other hand, it is in the opinion of the Board too high—to put a strong caße, we will say 50 per cent, too high— then, still, there is no provision for it 3 being offered to the old tenant at that figure; it must go to public tender on the basis of the rental as fixed by the Board. So far as the old tenant is concerned, the power conferred on the Board of lowering the upset rental is perfectly useless. It is exceedingly difficult to make out from the bill whether the outgoing tenant haa «yen a, right to tender for his own farm against tha general public, although if subsection d of section 37 were taken alone it might be implied that he had, for this section provides that "if any person other than the present lessee be declared the purchaser, ho shall, &c." This, however, ia exceedingly unsatisfactory. Either tho bill intends the outgoing lessee to have a right to tender, or it does rot, and lam prepared to show that in either case, as the hill is drawn, it involves either a, tremendous, injustice on the one hand, or a gross absurdity on the other. Let the f ram&ra of the bill take the choice of the horns of the dilemma.

1. If the old tenant has no right to compete for his own farm, and the Board has reduced the rent below the figure fixed by the Governor's nominee, we have here a man who has tilled the soil for 21 years, offered his farm at a rent higher than that at which it is offered to every other man in the Colony, and, if he refuses it, precluded from obtaining it at the rent at which it is offered to the outside public. This I certainly conoeive to be as gross a case of injustice as It is possible to conceive. On the other hand, if he has a right to compete, all the provisions about other people tendering are mere sarplusage and absurdity, for the simple reason that the bidding being on the. gum to be paid for improvements, he is in a position to bid any sum, say £20,000, masuroch as the sum bid is, under the bill, paid over tohimself. Practically, if he has the right to. tender at all, he can obtain the leas© at the reduced rental fixed by the Bowl, and yet tha bill makes no provision for ii being first offered to him at such reduced rental; but if he refuses it at the first rental fixed by tha nominea umpire, it must absolutely go to public competition. Confusion, however, becomes worse confounded when we come to section 38:—"If/1 — the lease is not sold 'to some person other than the lessee, or if such person fails to. execute the loa.se in duplicate within seven days,' then the lessee may within 14 days elect in manner aforesaid whether he will accept a fresh lease as aforesaid." Now, Sir, I defy any man in the Colony to tell what these mysterious words really mean. Whether the old lessee is to have the privilege of again considering whether he will take the lease at the rental fixed by the nominee umpire, or whether, after every other man in the Colony has had the offer of his fanv. at a rental fixed by the Board and has refused it, he is at length to be favoured with a similar offer, and to be forced into its acceptance by the provision that if he does not now accept it '* tjie lands included in his lease, with all improvements thereon, shall absolutely revert to her Majesty," we are left in complete uncertainty. When we consider. JjJlft that a Land Bill is one which creates, wnft defines the rights of purchasers and honeys of valuable property, and under which % landed estate of enormous value is to bfr disposed of, it becomes a matter of supreme importance that the measures which define and regulate the manner of the disposal of the public estate should be prepared with the utmost care and be subjected to the most careful scrutiny. The Government Land Bill, I feel assured, has received neither the one nor the other, and I have directed attention to a. few of the more salient defects in order, if possible, to prevent a crude and unworkable, measure passing into law in its present objectionable form.

The existing Land Acts indeed require? amendment, and require it badly, but the Government, instead oi addressing itself to a, necessary and practical task, has simply added to the already existing confusion by the projec- - tion of th,e bill now before the House of Hepres,entatives.—l am, &0., J. AITKEN CONKELL. July 10th,

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