The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1894. NATIVE LEASEHOLDERS.

Opunake Times, Volume I, Issue 20, 7 September 1894, Page 2

The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1894. NATIVE LEASEHOLDERS.

As will be seen by reference to our advertising columns, a meeting of native leaseholders is to be held to-morrow evening in the Town Hall at Opunake. The business to be considered is a ' petition which is to be presented to Parliament praying for an amendment in " The West Coast Settlements Reservo Act, 1892," to deal with several matters which are fully set out in the petition, and which are alleged to be injustices to the lessees. One of these is the present farce of holding meetings for the avowed object of fixing the rent.' As the Act stands at present, when a lessee applies for a new lease, he has to deposit a sum of money to cover expenses, and part of this is applied to paying the cost of advertising and conducting a meeting between himself and the native owners. Before this meeting is held, the Trustee has the property valued by—it is alleged—a valuator who is unacquainted with rural laud values, and fixes the rent at five per cent on this value. This is made known to both parties, and then they are invited to a little mental picnic at the expense of the losseo, to see if fchoy can "psfct tho !

Trustee, but this gentleman smilingly looks on, and, even- if a different rent, as in some instances, is agreed upon, he informs them that he will not agree to it, and retains his own valuation. He is to all intents and purposes, according to the spirit of the Act—that is, if Parliament was in its sober senses when it passed it—an umpire, who has the power to make a final award if the parties interested cannot come to an agreement; but we are quite satisfied that it was never intended he should have any other power than to confirm an agreement if mutually settled by the lessee and native owners. We can cite a case to show the absurdity of the Trustee's action. Mr David Leahy, of the Eltham Road, is the holder of Section 36, Block X., Opunake S.D., and applied for a new lease, as he considered the rent on his place was too high, finding out, after the bush was felled, that the section contained a large area of swampy land, which was not apparent when he first selected it. The native owners also admitted this. The rent under the old lease came to £l4 Bs, or 3s per acre per annum. A supposed valuation was made, and the Public Trustee advanced the rent to £l4 lis per annum. The meeting was held in due course between the lessee and native owners, and the latter agreed to accept 2s 6d per acre, or £l2 per annum. After a lapse of time, the Mr Leahy that he did not agree to this, and that he had fixed his rental at £l4 lis, the value put on by him before the meeting was held, being 3s a year more than he was paying under the old lease. There is not much difference between the rental under the new and that under the old lease; but Mr Leahy justly feels aggrieved at being made a fool of, being made to bear the expense of a futile meeting, and losing his time attending it, when the Trustee must have made up his mind that his own assessment should be adhered to, all the while that this solemn farce was being enacted. The following is the statement of account for charges in connection with this little burlesque, in which the Trustee takes the part of first comedy man : £ s. d". To Stamping Declaration and Fine 3 1 „ Cost of Valuation .. ..220 „ Advertising, "Hawera Star ".. 3 0 0 „ Expense of Rent Meeting .. 11 0 „ Drawing Plan and Preparing Lease in Triplicate.. ..330 „ Stamping New Lease .. .. 5 0 „ Registering New Lease .. 10 0 „ Stamping Surrender on Old Lease .. • • • • 10 0 „ Registering Surrender on Old Lease '• •• 5 °

£lO 19 1 &•—By Deposit on Application .. 710 0

Balance Due by Lessee .. £3 9 1

It will be seen by the foregoing account that the lessee has paid for valuation, by a man who, it is alleged, knows nothing of the value of land in the district, £2 2s; for advertising in a paper which none of the parties interested see once a year, £3 3s ; and for a meeting held apparently to give a commissioner a billet, £1 Is ; or a total of £6 3s—to get hip rent raised'3s a year. If the rent be fixed low by the Trustee, naturally the lessee will wish to abide by it; and if, high, the native owners will be equally exacting; so that the meeting part of the process is simply a travesty on common sense. It is pointed out in tho petition that land values, owing to the boom in the dairy industry which has set in since the Act was passed, are unduly inflated, and that no cognisance of this has been taken in arriving at values, so that should any retrogade step take place in this industry, it would be an impossibility for lessees to pay the rents fixed, and the same process would have to be gone through which took place some years back, to obtain a reduction in rents, or suffer ruin, on the part of the lessees, who have sunk everything they possessed in improvements. There are a number of other matters of an administrative nature of which the petitioners ask redress. We hope the lessees will assemble in force and discuss the matter, so that a fair concensus of opinion on the proposed alterations may be obtained.