The Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 1651, 14 July 1883, Page 17

The Otago Witness.

«TSH WHICH IB INOOBPORATKD THK 'SOUTHRXI' MEUODBTt.' SATURDAY, 14th JULY, 188$. Ministers, through the mouth of his ! Excellency in the opening Speech, informed Parliament and the country that amendments of existing Land Acts would ob subtniLted for consideration, since " further experience in departmental administi*ation" had shown that some changes were requisite " in order to give effect to the desire of the Legislature that the puhlic estate should be so disposed of as to promote the distribution of the land amongst a numerous and industrious population." The Land Acts Amendment Bill introduced by Mr JRoLLESTON is designed entirely with this object, and is intended to have specific effect in preventing the possibility of those evasions of the law relating to settlement which have become a public scandal in this Provincial District, and which, if permitted to continue, would be productive of most j mischievous results to the best interests of the Colony. The bill is twofold in ifcs character : it amends the enactments under which land is disposed of on deferred payments, whether such land be ordinary rura,l or purely pastoral ;

and ifc institutes aa altogether [new . system of dealiug with lands which. 1 under section 75 of " The .Land Act 1877," are classified 'as "not being suited for agriculture." It is to such lauds that the pastoral deferred-payment system ia presumed in its operation solely to apply, although the .l)e- , partment have deemed it advisable to include, where possible, in eaoh allotment a small proportion of land' available for the plough. TJw bill ' proposes to establish what ire may ' probably with correctness term.^an alternative system of. disposing ,6f , and settling lands of this 1 class. The Governor-in-Oouncil may by proclamation "set apart any rural lands which may be classified under section 75 of 'The Land Act 1877' as being pasI toral lands not fie for agriculture, for leasing by the Board " in areas ' not y exceeding 5000 acres each. A lease, will entitle the lessee to " free right of I pasturage," and to " all crops which he may choose to take off any part of the i land he may put into cultivation " ; but timber or bush must not, be cutexoepb | by license of the Board. .The currency | of leases is to be for a term of from 14 to 21 years, with full compensation for improvements on determination, bat no special advantage otherwise to the outgoing 1 tenant should he desire a > renewal. The leases are to be put up to public competition by tender, at . an upset rental equivalent to 2^ per oenfc. on the capital value of the land, and any tender will be deemed to be informal unless accompanied by, a statutory declaration in the form set forth , in. the schedule to the bilJ, which, is substantially the same as that embodied in.the present Act. The tenderer must declare that he is purchasing the lease " solely for his own use and benefit, and not for the use or benefit of any other person whomsoever," and that he is nob directly or indirectly, either by himself, - or in conjunction with any other person or persoas, the owner of any freehold lands, or the occupier under license or lease from the Crown, with a right to purchase, of any laads to an • area, inclusive of the lands comprised . in the lease for which he is tendering exceeding in the whole 5640 acres.. Every lessee must "within twelve months of the commencement of .h'ia term, and thereafter for a period of six consecutive years, reside on Borne portion of the lands leased by him " ; bufc, the Board may dispense with this condition if the lessee resides continabnsly during the period named " on any freehold or leasehold lands of not- (less than 50 acres in area, in his own .occupation, situate within an area of 20 miles from the land leased." Substantial improvements of a permanent character are to be put upon the ' land, " to a value equivalent to the amount of one year's rent of the land, within one year from the date of the lease," and to an equal value within two years, and thereafter, but within six years from the date of the lease, "to a value equivalent to four years' rent of . the land." If any lessee fail to fulfil ■ the conditions, or any of them, within • 30 days after the day on which the - same ought to be fulfilled, and shall refuse to give up possession of the hind when required to do so by the Oommisr sioner of Crown Lands, the Commit -„ sioner may proceed for recovery of the land in the manner provided by sections - ■ 69 and 70 of "The Land Act 1877 i' r which enact the method of recovery ia the case of selectors under the deferredpayment system. There is no provision for giving a right of purchase to lessees, nor is the proposed system one of f>er- . petual leasing, since on the expiry o£ ■ the term a lease is to be open to public competition, subject to the payment of I valuation for improvements. The practical substitution of this leasehold tenure for conditional alienation o» deferred payments appears to be cajfei*lated to give checkmate to the runholders, who under the existing arrange- ,r, r raents, it would seem, are able to retn*n all the best of the country for depasturing their flocks, and laugh at the abortive attempts to settle a population, on the soil. Section 9 of " The Land Act Amendment Act 1879 " provides that < any selector under the deferred-payment system who at any time after three years has completed the improvements ,- specified in the conditions of his license, shall be "entitled to the right to a grant of the land on payment of so much of the price thereof (if any) as shall remain unpaid." The bill proposes to repeal this section, and re-enact the original condition in the Act of 1 879 which entitled a selector to purchase at the expiration of nix year& - This is a move in the, right direction, as interposing delay in the acquisition of the freehold, whilst no harm is done

to the'-iona fide pettier. In respect of pastoral land on deferred payment?, the hill purports to enact that every selector roußt reside for six consecutive years, instead of five, on his allotment, or. •with the leave of the Board, on his own freehold -within 20 mile*, and thai, he must put "substantial improvement* of a' permanent charaater" on the laud, of the same value and to th« same proportion as the holder of- a least*. ■will be bound to do in tbe Wms of the bill quoted above. These, provisions will, of course, only apply to lauds sold in future under this system ; but they certainly seem sufficiently stviogeni ■when we consider the average amount per acre of the annual instalments payable in respect of allotments already sold — an equivalent to the amount of four" years' payments being obliged to be expended on improvements within six years. A shbrt clause at the end of the Mil repeals absolutely section 38 of the Land Act of last' session, which, h may be recollected, was interpolated by the Legislative Council in the teeth «.f the Government and of the House of Rppreaentatives. This gives a right of pn robaso to lessees within six years if all conditions have been fulfilled, but it does not apply to "any land or any education reserve situate within any mining or gold-mining district." But for the latter proviso, which was agreed to at a conference between the two Chambers, . the Government would have abandoned the bill, since the principle of perpetual leasing was the very kernel of the measure. "We hope the Council will not be so unwise as to make a breach with the popular branch of the Legislature by declining to assent to the. repeal. We have now, we think, briefly touched upon the main features of the J bill, which has the merit of being not only shorb, but intelligibly worded. It may be noted, however, that there is specific provision (o meet cases which have recently de mauded attention in connection with the -Kale of reserves. The last clause of the bill enacts that where any lands are discharged from reservation, and' are authorised to be sold for the of settlement, "the Governor ( may, iiotwithatanding such authority, except such portions of the land from sale as he shall think necessary, and may reserve the same for • .pablie purposes under the 140 th section ;of * The Land Act 1877.' " The chief defect of the bill eeemi to be that ! it does not provide n^w aud pffi carious machinery for detecting and punishing evasions of the law in regard to land already taken up, but this will probably be 'done when tha Committee now. sitting to investigate the cases of alleged dummyism has'rop ft r'ed.