TIRED OF LEASEHOLD.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1780, 19 June 1913, Page 6

TIRED OF LEASEHOLD.

CITY ENDOWMENT TENANTS.

AN OFFER TO PURCHASE.

The tenants of tho City Council s endowment at Pahiatua are dissatisfied with their present perpetual lease tenure, and they aro appealing to the council for tho right to acquire the freeholds of their prdperties. Yesterday this request was made to tho Leaseholds Committee, of tho council, by Mr. T Mextedrepresenting all tho tenants. Mr. T. W. Hislop appeared as counsel. Mr. Hislop said the tenants contended that they could work their ground very much better if they possessed not only their present rights, but the right to all the improvements they mitfht make. Theoretically they were entitled to the difference between the original value, and the value of the land with improvements, but in practice they found that they ran a risk of not,bcing credited with tho full valuo of the improvements. This land was capable # of bein? improved by fertilising, stumping 1 , subdividing', ana drainage, but tho tenants said that the Inevitable 1 result of currying out thei© Improvements would be to raise the standard of unimproved value in the district. Tho better reputation the land would get by increased production would necessarily increase the unimproved value, becauso of the difficulty of assessing how much of tho capital value had been added by improvements. The tenants naturally wanted to know what their future property in tho land was likely to be, and this they could not know under tho present system. General showed that a system of tenure which did not secuTe to ; tW tenant oil his improvinente,. was 'conducive to bad farming, and lessoned tho productivity of tho property as a whole. It was a direct discouragement'to good farming. The tenants would always at tha tlmo of the assessment make the lend look as bad as possible, and where it was-tho policy to do this over a wholo i block, there would bo difficulty in main- ; j taining the real valuo of tho land, lno , I tenants believed they could inako moro out of the land ifi they owned tho freehold, than they now did with tho prospoets of raised rents always before their eyes. They desired now to purchase their land at the Government valuation, and .they asked the council to take mortgages for the whole or part of the purchaso money, with interest at 5 per cent., until tho end of the present terms of lease. He urged that this arrangement would help the council funds by enabling them to pay off loans log; which they w*ero paying a 'higher rate of interest than i the endowment now earnsd for them. Since this block was in the territory of another local, body, and outside the jurisdiction of the council, ho did not think the question of the policy of the council in dealing with their own lands should enter into the matter. Councillor M'Kenzio (to Mr. Mexted): "Would you be willing to hand your land back to ; the City Council at the Government valuation, plus improvements?" Mr. Mexted: Tea. And I think all the "other tenants are pretty much of the same opinion. In reply to a • further question, Mr. Mexted said the tenants would probably be willing to pay cash if the council required this, and to raise the money by mortgage elsewhere. -