Kawhia Lands.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 368, 19 March 1902, Page 1

Kawhia Lands.

(Special to Times.) Auckland. Referring to the Kawhia lands, the Star states :

The first fact to be considered in connection with the restriction that has been placed on the sale of Ivawhia land is the fact that it is a violation of the spirit of the Land Act, which provides for an option. This is so clear that the Government have overcome it by dealing with the land under the clause governing the disposal of “ lands supposed to contain any metal, mineral or valuable stone.” The Kawhia block consists of heavy bush laud, and although there may, of course, be minerals in it, the treatment of the whole block as mineral land is a manifest subterfuge. If the Government consider that no more Crown land should be sold, their proper course is to bring down an amendment to the Land Act; a question of this great public importance should not be settled by Ministers, who are there to administer the Jaw as it stands.

The second point is the fact that the lease in perpetuity does not reserve public rights in the land. As Mr Fowlds stated at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, it is giving away the freehold without getting anything for it. Whatever may be said against the single tax doctrine, no one can accuse its exponents of being the friends of land speculators, Yet the President of the League publicly declared that he did not know a single taxer who did not admit that the lease in perpetuity is a good deal worse than occupation with a right of purchase. To part with Crown land for 999 years at a rental of 4 per cent, on its present unimproved value, _ without re-valuation, means the setting _ up of a barrier against all land reform and an obstacle to equitable taxation upon land. Besides that, it involves a present sacrifice of value —first of all by shutting out the legitimate competition of a desirable class of settlers, and secondly by making a concession of odb per cent, annually on the capital value as compared with the payments due to the Government from tenancies with the right of purchase. The public are thus cheated all round. As for land speculation, the conditions compelling improvement are quite as stringent in the cose of land purchased for cash, or with the rignt to acquire the freehold, as under the provisions governing leases in perpetuity. The cry of the speculator is a bogus one from first to last. The land will certainly not be so quickly or so beneficially settled under the altered conditions as it would have been if disposed of under the original terms.