Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1905. LAND SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 12867, 27 May 1905, Page 4

Taranaki Herald. SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1905. LAND SETTLEMENT.

As the Land Commission will be here ne(xt week it may not be inopportune to, direct , attention to wHuat appears to { ~he an excellent system of placing people upon the laiud, which •is adopted in New South Wales under the provisions of the "Closer Settlement Act." Any male person not being under eighteen years of age, and any female person not under twenty-one years of age, i and not being the holder of aiiyj land except town or suburban land, under the Crown Lands Act, or 'held.', under lease, as provided in the Closer Settlement • Act, ' or a township* allotment , thereunder, ■ ' or land held as a tenant from a private holder,i may apply. < The Land Board, in open Court, inquire into the merits of each application and allow or refuse them. t The conditions before us doi not explain what is done when there are two or more simultaneous applications for the same selection ; apparently th(4 liairul Board allot it to the applicant who, in their opinion, is the most eligible. A condition of residence for ten years attaches to

every settlement purchase,, , and commences at any time within twelve months after the decision of the Land Board allowing the purchase, but this term may ,be extended to any 'date , within . five years of the allowance of purchase, on such terms and conditions as to improvement and cultivation, as may be agreed upon between the I/anid Board and the purchaser. If the land be unimproved, thq purchaser must make substantial aud permanent ' improvements thereon to the value of ten per centum of the capital value within two years from 1 date of commencement of purchase, and to an additiolnal five per centum of said value l within five years, and to a further additional ten per centum within ten years from same date. 'EJxisting imiprovements on the land to the \ aiti'Oitmt of their ' value shall be held to fulfil this condition. With regard to payment for the lanld, a deposit of five per centum of the notified value of a purchase must be lodged 1 with an application. At the end of the first year from date of application, otf within threes months thereafter, au , instalment on the .purdliSase money at the rate of five per centum of the capital value of the land, and thereafter a like instalment annually until the

bilatire of inu-tluue money, j toother with interest at the rate of four per centum per annum thereon, has been paid ; but two or more instalments may be paid at the same time. By this means payment for the land \is spread

over a peiiod of thirty-eight years. This sybtcm, it will be recognised by many oi our readers, is somewhat on the lines o? tha old deferred payment system, under which, the most successful settlement in Taraiiaki has taken place. Here, however, the payments were spreadover a period of ten years, afterwards . extended to fourteen, ,iv order -to help some of the settlers over a- du11... per iocl. ■• The > New South Wales system . makes the terms of payment ridiculouslyeasy, for what would be only a very light rental carries with its payment a sinking fumd which extinguishes the capital amount iv only thirty-eight . years. Wts should think that payment spread over twenty years would be quite easy enough in this country. We suggest to the Laud Commission that while the membeis are in Tarauaki they should try to get some evidence of- the actual working ol the deferred system, when it was in vogue; and" of /die results when the terms of payments had expired. The latter will, we think, . be found astonishing.