SHOWN LANDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144359, 25 March 1914, Page 2

SHOWN LANDS.

ADDiiESS BY COMMISSIONER. Before proceeding with the ordinary business of the Taranaki Land Board to-day, Mr. U. hi. Bullard, Commissioner of Crown Lands, remarked that there wore several applications before ihe board in wiucii aggregation was contemplated. Most ot them (if the country was, as is represented, not lit for dairying or agriculture) were perhaps not altogether unreasonable. Personally, he always felt inclined to resist aggregation of dairying country; however small the area, ’iiiere were also two axiplications in which the consideration money, taking into account experience with tenants of the same or surrounding land, seamed unduly high. The circumstances surrounding one and the short time it had been held seemed to him to point unmistakably to speculation pure and simple, and ho thought the board should take into consideration the of a point-blank refusal. If the parties thought themselves aggrieved they had the remedy of being able to make it freehold. Ho had hitherto been diary of asking the board to interfere in a contract if it was assured the incoming man had gone fully into the position, as a refusal on account of high consideration logically placed on the board the duty of fixing goodwill, but at the same time the board must consider the interest, and if a tenant was subject to heavy interest charges over and above the rents he would be crippled in his farming and would bo coming to the board for postponement of rents, etc. The board quite rightly, in the interests of financing settlement, protected the interests of mortgagees as far as possible, but in order to do that effectually it should see that the land was not too heavily encumbered by inflated values. The successive agents’ fees alone on some of the sections must make a large addition to the cost of much of the land. The board’s business was more to protect the man coming into and using the land than with those who simply regarded the Crown’s_ interest practically as a loan on which they were paving a very low rate of interest. In the press, Parliament, and elsewhere it was asserted that too high a value was being set on waste land of the Crown, but if some of these goodwills were fair value they were not charging half enough, and it the profit of the outgoing man was equitable it did not seem to him a hardship Tor him to pay down the Crown’s price of the land.' There was a tendency, too, for parties to arrange stock deals and take up residence before they obtained the board’s consent. If the board's control was to be real and not a mere form it should insist upon its consent being obtained. before possession took place. The distance from educational facilities was often given as a reason for proposed transfers. Members of the board expressed themselves in agreement wit hthe views of the Commissioner. Mr. Heslop said ho looked upon the board as the trustee of the public estate. and it was its duty, in the interests of the State, to see that the man coming “T* ho in a position to pay hia vag.