"THIRDS" AND "FOURTHS."

Otago Witness, Issue 2715, 28 March 1906, Page 9

"THIRDS" AND "FOURTHS."

There is, . we apprehend, very little "doubt respecting the validity of the claim" the Southland County Council has made upon the School Commissioners for the payment of accrued " thirds " and "fourths" of rentals received by tbe Commissioners from lands vested in them and administered by the Land Board in the Southland County. The section of the Land -Act of 1392 upon which the Council relies in support of its claims is sufficiently- explicit in its terms. It provides that where any reserve is vested as an endowment for any purpose in any body like the School Commissioners, "in the event of any part of such endowments being disposed of on occupation with -right of purchase or on perpetual lease, the provisions of section 126 of this Act shall determine the contribution to be paid to the local authority, to be expended in the construction of roads within or to open up such lands." And section 126 specifies that "for or towards the construction or maintenance of roads and bridges leading to-'br opening up the land in any district disposed of under this Act or under* any Act heretofore in force " there shall be handed to the local authority having the control of the lands in the district one-third of the periodical payments and rental of all land disposed of under deferred payments or on perpetual lease or lease in perpetuity or for occupation with right of purchase, and one-fourth of the rent of every grazing run leased under the Land Act. It will, we think, be found that the School Commissioners will not dispute their liability to have " thirds " deducted from the rentals of all their endowments that have been disposed of under the provisions of the Act in question. There is some reason to believe, however, that they have been under the impression that certain deductions which were made by the Receiver of Land Revenue before the payments in respect of the lands came into their hands at all included provision for rendering " thirds " to the local authority. In the circumstances, it seems highly likely that the Southland County Council will benefit financially to a very material extent through the discovery, apparently made quite recently, that it has* not received payments to which it is certainly entitled in terms of the law. But we are disposed to regard it as extremely doubtful whether the County Council will be able to establish a claim against the Commissioners for the payment of as much as £10,000^ which has been mentioned as the amount of accrued " thirds." The only land that is affected is a block — of considerable extent, certainly — in the Wendon district, the whole of the balance of the School Commissioners)' endowments, in Southland and elsewhere, having been disposed of under tho provisions of separate legislation. Whatever the amount which is involved, moreover, we do not suppose that any particular alarm need be felt over its transference from the custody of the School Commissioners to that of the Southland County Council. It will, we trust, be judiciously expended by the Couucil upon road-making in the district to which the ''thirds" are applicable ; and as the maintenance of education constitutes a charge upon the public funds it will devolve, upon the Government to provide iv other ways the amount of which the School Commissioners will suffer the loss.