The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1913.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5325, 4 June 1913, Page 2

The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1913.

The vesting of discretionary power in Land Boards to confer the right to transfer Government leases before the expiration of live years occupation by the successful applicant lias borne very evil fruit, lids was shown to be the case by the judgment and comments of Mr Justice Cooper in the case Edwards v. Webb and Roberts. The defendants are holders of 2956 acres of settlement land. The plaintiff sued for alleged breach ol argeement to sell a portion of their leasehold interest, from which with

other transactions which were being

negotiated would have brought £8875 £pr 2000 acres. The rental of the whole Government leasehold was £2:; a, year, and £690 had been paid for improvements. The value of the argeement to sell hinged upon the ability of the holder to secure the Consent of the Land Board to the transaction. The power vests in this body to forego the live years’ residence from the date of the commencement of the lease, in the case of death or what is in their opinion an extra'ordinary event occurs. Death did not occur in this case, neither was any mention made of an extraordinary event. In the absence of one of these occurrences for the Land Board to allow this premature transfer would have been both legally and morally wrong. One of the plaints ol the purchaser of the lease was that the defendants had not made any exertion to secure the consent of the board to the transfer. If there was any probability that the board would give its consent to a transfer under the conditions set forth in the evidence and the judge’s summing up, a very bad state of affairs is indicated, which calls for the most rigid invest i-