A DEAL IN LAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10681, 30 January 1913, Page 2

A DEAL IN LAND.

RECENT CANTERBURY TRANSACTION". MR FISHER'S EXPLANATION. Last evening the Hon F. M. B. Fisher made a statement in. regard to a leading article published in the "Lyttelton Times" on January 18/ in which reference was made to the method of disposing of the lease of a hloclc of Crown land in the North Canterbury district. Mr , Fisher said that, with the authority of the Prime Minister, he was able to publish an explanation of the transaction, supplied by Mr C. R. Pollen, Commissioner of Crown Lands for Canterbury. Mr "Pollen said: "The auction sale of pastoral run 242 was, held 'on January 9 at the ordinary meeting of the Land Board. This accounted for the presence of the thirty men mentioned in the newspaper paragraph, and it included a large deputation from the Greta Peaks small grazing rims. These and other applicants for transfers attended the sale merely out of curiosity. There were only four men who bid for the property, and the sale was not spirited. The land consists of good soil-of papa formation, and possesses well-watered gullies, with wide spurs, which are capable of being ploughed, bu£"the section is quite illaccessible, and it would cost at least £SOO to make it accessible. This would mean a loading of £1 per acre upon the land bpfore a man of small means .could get on it at all. Hence the decision of-the Land Board, which offered the land oil pastoral lease. t The land was formerly let to a Mr Little, tho highest bidder at the auction, 1 at nn annual rental of £3O. His lease expired on June 30, 1907. He was granted a further extension of three years at a rental of £lll, but the question of access has always been an obstacle to the letting of the run. Mr' Little is the owner of 268 acres of freehold, but has a lease of 5456 acres in tho locality from Mr Reece for a term of ten years, from December 15, 1906, so that in four years' time Mr Little will have nothing but his 308 acres of land. The decision to offer the land as a pastoral run was the decision of the local Land Board, and Mr Little was eligible, and was the highest bidder." " Tho only comment I wish to make." Mr Fisher added, "is that the ' Lyttelton Times' has been misled; that the thirty men who attended the sale wore not there for the purpose of bidding; that the 'wealthy squatter' who obtained the property proves to be the owner of. 3(58 acres of freehold: and that, to make the section accessible for a small settler, the sum of £SOO would have had to be spent upon it, whH\ would have loaded it so lieavily that, probably, tho small man would not have taken it up at all. Perhaps the most important feature of the transaction is the fact that neither the Government nor the Minister of Lands had anything to do with the sale, all the proceedings being conducted by the Land Board. And so this amazing discovery of tho ' Lyttelton Times' goes up in a cloud of smoke."