PROPERTY BILL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25302, 12 August 1943, Page 4

PROPERTY BILL

AMENDMENTS PROMISED TIME LIMIT TO APPLICATION (F.0.P.R.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 11. The intention of the Government to add a clause to the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Bill to limit its application for the duration of the war and for five years afterwards was announced by the Minister of Lands, Mr J. G. Barclay, moving the second reading of the Bill in the House of Representatives to-night. He also stated that several minor amendments would be moved when the measure was in the committee stages. Mr Barclay said it was considered that the majority of the returned servicemen seeking to be settled on the land would be satisfactorily established within five years of the war ending. It had also been decided to add a clause to part I of the Bill relating to the setting up of the land sales court to provide that the judge of the court must be a party to the decision.

To clarify various interpretations placed on the Bill, the Minister continued, the Government was prepared, if necessary, so to amend it to make it clear that the taking of land applied only to farm lands. The Minister said he did not think it was necessary to make that amendment, as it was clearly intended to apply the compulsory powers taken under the Bill to farming land. He said that representations had been made by the New Zealand Law Society regarding the publication of the proceedings before the court or committees, and a clause would be inserted Confining publication to the price of the land only. The society had agreed that the price should be published. Scope of Compulsory Power* In reply to an interjection by Mr G. W. Forbes (Oppn., Hurunui), the Minister said that the compulsory powers under the Bill were not intended to apply to houses or urban land. Sir Apirana Ngata (Oppn., Eastern Maori); Will, the . Bill apply to Native lands? The Minister: Not unless the lands are Sir Apirana pointed out that the Bill did not make that clear. Mr Barclay said that the clause providing for a Crown representative at proceedings of the Land Sales Court or committees was justifiable as the interests of the returning men had to be safeguarded. The Minister said his statement that several organisations had asked for the Bill was borne out by evidence he possessed. He quoted from resolutions adopted by the Dominion Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union and the South Canterbury Provincial Executive of the union, and remits adopted at the conference of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association. “ The R.S.A., which we have consulted, is 95 per cent, with the Government in the provisions of the Bill, and we differ only in regard to the question of the freehold,” the Minister added. Quoting his own experiences as a returned man of the Great War, the Minister said he sold his farm on enlisting at £25 an acre, and when he came back the man who had bought it refused £4O an acre for it. The Minister said that thousands of the men who returned would be looking for land and perhaps 50 per cent, of them would buy land privately. “We are not going to allow land values to rise against these men and we have to peg prices to protect them,” he said. "We are on the verge of a land boom similar to that after the last war. This is happening in the towns# more so than in the country. Perhaps we should have pegged values earlier. We should have the whole country behind us in seeking to ensure that the 150,000 men who have entered the armed forces shall not come back to find that house and land values have increased beyond reason.” Profiting by Experience

The Minister said he wanted the assistance of the Opposition. The experience of settling men on the land after the last war should be a guide for the country to-day. The total losses Incurred by the State "after 1918 had amounted to £9,685,000. He believed the Bill would result in fairness to the owners of land. In fact, he considered that the compensation procedure would ensure generous treatment.

He would rather go out of office than permit returning men to be settled on the land at inflated values, the Minister added, and he would not be a party to putting them on back-country blocks, " I am going to see,” he said, “ that the returned men will get good land on good roads, with electricity and all modern conveniences.”