A BETTER INVESTMENT.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 57, 4 September 1926, Page 10

A BETTER INVESTMENT.

The Hon. B.1 Moore said he disagreed entirely with Sir Bobert Stout. He submitted that the endowment lands it was proposed to sell would be. worth very much 'more to the country when the .money so obtained was reinvested in city property, as it was proposed to do. The proposal was in the best interests of settlement and production. The limitation of the value- of buildings would tend to closer and the fact that a man frjln year to year was getting nearer to obtaining, the freehold of his land would put new heart into him and induce him to produce more. The Hon. J. A. Hanan referred to "the wretched picture of some of the fieehold properties of this Dominion." Some of the so-called freehold lands in Taranaki, sold by land gamblers, were embarrassed by ■ six or seven mortgages. If the freehold had not been given there would -not have been the incentive for wholesale land gambling. There were thousands of cases in New Zealand in which the mortgagee owned the la,nd,,and not thejman on the land. One of the most deplorable conditions that existed in New Zealand was the drift from tho country to the towns. "Just what this Bill is aimed at," interjected the Hon. G. J. Garland. Mr. Hanan maintained that the leasehold would enable the poor man with little capital to get on the land. It also secured limitation of area. Mr. Garland: "This Bill does so." Mr. Hanan: "Not to the same extent." He went on to refer to the number of eases in which freehold lands were deteriorating. If the freeholder was not a rentpayer he was an interest payer. Sir John Sinclair: "Does the leasehold promote production?"