NATIONAL ENDOWMENTS

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

NATIONAL ENDOWMENTS

DISPOSAL OF LANDS

LEASEHOLD V. FREEHOLD

DEBATE IN LEGISLATIVE

COUNCIL,

The proposal in the Land Laws Amendment Bill for the sale of the national endowment lands gave rise to differences of opinion when the Bill was under discussion in the Legislative Council yesterday. An amendment by Sir Robert Stout to negative the proposal was defeated by an overwhelming majority. The Right Hon. Sir Eobert Stout expressed the opinion that it would be a huge mistake to sell the national endowments. What an enormous advantage it would be to the country if it had. kept to the leasing system! Rates in Dunedin we^e not as high as they were in Wellington, and the reason was that £40,000 was .derived from city, endowments which at one time were of little value. If it was laid down that no person, should hold land except those who were using it, and that the leasehold system should be abolished, a new kind of occupancy would be started

drift to the towns would not bo stopped by continuing the leasehold system. The Hon. Mr. Earnshaw contended that there had never been anything but freehold in New Zealand. There had never been a true leasehold. The freehold might be profitable, but it was a policy which would be a rod to be applied in the not far (distant future. While he maintained that-the Crown should hold every inch of the land of the country, he would support the Bill. Declaring that the leaseholders had made New Zealand what it was, the Hon. G. Witty said he would oppose anything'in the direction of disposing of the national endowment leases. The Hon. Sir Frederick Lang supported the proposal in the Bill. I The Hon. E. Newman referred to the prominence which the question of land tenure had occupied at General Elections, and' said that at the last election it was lost sight of altogether, as well as the party which "had so long advocated the leasehold system. If it had not been for the freehold tenure in the North Island the greater part of it would still be standing bush. Under the freehold system the improvements were secured ■ to the man who made them, but not so under the leasehold. .Further, the freehold satisfied the aspirations of the owner; very few leaseholders were satisfied.