THE ETERNAL LEASE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9762, 12 June 1893, Page 3

THE ETERNAL LEASE.

TO THB EDITOB.

Sir, —When the 993 perpetual lease act was first mooted sensible people thought it was a joke. The absurdity has now become a fact, and the puny legislators of to-day are making laws for a thousand years to come. First see the injustice of it to those who have bought land here. For years past the New Zealand Government have done their best;to get people to come and pay hard cash for land, have paid'men to go Homeand induce others to come and buy land and settle in New Zealand, and now the Government turns round and giveß the land away for a rent that will fall a long way short of the interest on the purchase money had the land been sold, thus reducing the value of all land io. New Zealand and robbing those who paid for their land in hard cash by reducing the value of their estates. Next, what security has the country got that the 999 years' lease will be carried out ? None whatever. Those who are lucky enough to get these leases at a loss to the country at largo will just keep them or throw them up as it suits them. They can take everything off the land, make it a wilderness, and then move on and laugh at the Government—just as certain gentlemen who have given more rent for small runs than they ever can or mean to pay not a hundred miles from here will do.—l am, &c, Ngapara, June 9. Robert Paulin.