THE CORPORATION AND THEIR TENANTS.

Evening Star, Issue 3029, 4 November 1872, Page 2

THE CORPORATION AND THEIR TENANTS.

To the Editor. Sih, —It has been said that a Corporation has not a “ body” to be kicked, nor a soul against which the damnatory clauses of an Athanasian Creed can be hurled; but it has been thought that in some way or other a Corporation had a conscience or moral regulator. We read of the keeper of the King’s conscience, and the Monarch being the highest corporation in the country, is surely a type of the rest. If one were, however, to characterise the City Corporation of Dunedin, he would have to state that not only were both body and soul wanting, but also a conscience, or an ability to see that its acts are not strictly conformable to the moral law. People who are not tenants to the Corporation maynqt have paid any attention to what 1 may justly terra the contradictory, if not mysterious, advertisements and resolutions of Council and Reserves Committee which have been published in your journal. I am not a tenant to the Corporation, but what 1 have gleaned from a perusal of your pages, and also from reading the lease and communications between the Corporation and one of the tenants, the position seems to be this The Corporation leased, some fourteen years ago, certain sections in Dunedin. In the lease there was a provision that full valuation was to he paid to the lessee for all buildings erected on the land by him. This valuation was to be paid by the incoming tenant, the rate to be paid being determined by arbitration, the outgoing tenant choosing one arbitrator, and the incoming another. There was another provision in the lease that if there were no incoming tenant, then the lessee should have permission to remove his buildings from the land. The Corporation first proposed to the tenants to settle the value before leasing to new tenants. This was to be done by the Corporation appointing one valuator and the tenant the other. To this proposal many of the tenants acquiesced, The Corporation, however, suddenly came to another determination. A

circular was sent to the tenants, saying that I they must clear their land of all buildings. ' The leasing of the land has been delayed, in j order that there may be no incoming tenant, and in order, further, that the present tenants shall get no value for their biiil ing=. But tbe Corporation has not stopped even there. It has appointed a vainer, who has, in many instances to my knowledge, undervalued the buildings ; and the Corporation now says to the tenants, “ Accept our valuation or clear off your buildings. ” lam certain thatno one having abody, soul, and conscience would have attempted to evade the tonus of the lease in the manner tbe Corporation has done. For what does the lease mean ? Does it not in terms say to the lessee, “ Put building on our land and our incoming tenant shall pay you ; but if we have no tenant, then you may take them away, we cannot pay you.” By refusing to let the lands, the Corporation says, “We have no incoming tenant, and hence we can force you to take off your buildings, or make you sell your buildings tons at an absurd under-value.” Is this honest? Would any man with a spark of honesty in his composition do such a thing ? Would any one refuse to let hia lands in order to legally cheat his tenant out of his valuation ? Why arc the sections not at once lease ? The only excuse offered by the Corporation is that higher rents will be obtained. T confess it; but at whoso expense ? Clearly at the expense of the tenants, who, on the faith of being repaid for their expenditure in building, erected buildings. There was a good deal of talk of the Tammany Bing during the recent Municipal elections ; can it be that notwithstanding all the talk, the Bing has got a footing in our midst ?—Yours, &c., A CITT/EN.