SOLDIER SETTLERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3803, 1 February 1927, Page 63

SOLDIER SETTLERS.

AMENDED REGULATIONS. CHRISTCHURCH. January 30. Amended regulations under the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Act were gazetted at the end of last week. The new rules provide that the license to occupy land purchased on deferred payments shall be for a period of 34 i years, the purchase price being payable in the same manner as though it were a loan on a table mortgage at the rate of 5-1 per cent. Under the new system soldier settlers can at any time convert their- present special tenure leases into freeholds. _ The old regulations now revoked provided that settlers could purchase the land straight out, or they could convert from the special tenure lease to the freehold under a system of deferred payment licenses tenable for a term of 19 years. Under that tenure they paid down one-twentieth of the purchase price, and an additional ■one-twentieth every- succeeding year, but there was always the 5 per cent, interest payable on the unpaid balance, and the result was that in the early days of the soldier settler’s career the payments were always fairly stiff. Under last year’s Land Act the new method of capitalising the deferred payments has been instituted, and what has been done now is to incorporate the new system in the regulations relating to the settlement lands of the discharged soldiers who can convert their present leases into freeholds any time they wish.