THE LAND ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1700, 1 August 1879, Page 3

THE LAND ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

[By TBLE&BArn.] This Bill provides that, notwithstanding anything contained in the Act o£ 1877, or the Crown Lands Sale Act, 1877, the Governor may from time to time fix the upset price of rural or suburban land open for sale on deferred payments at a minimum price of 30s per acre for rural land, and 90s for suburban land, and may increase the upset price of allotments considered of special value. Small sections may bo grouped into allotments to make up the maximum area when they are contiguous. Sub-section V. of section 63 of Act of 1877 is repealed, and in sub-section Till, of the same section tho words “ substantial improvements” will include “further clearing or cultivation.” Selectors of improved lands arc to pay the value of improvements, the value to be assessed and declared at least one month before the time appointed for receiving application for occupation of the land so improved. The value assessed is to be be paid to the Receiver of Land Revenue by the selector within one month of making the selection. In default of payment tho selector will forfeit his license and deposit. Where the selector himself is the person to whom compensation for improvements is payable he will pay no compensation nor receive any. Homestead owners, under the Auckland or Westland system, are prohibited from becoming selectors under the Act. In section 59 of the said Act the words following shall be omitted, that is to say—“ and tho payments made by the selectors shall from time to time, until the amount of such onethird be reached, be paid over to such County Council or Road Board, as the case may be,” and the words following are hereby inserted in lieu thereof—“ and one-third of the payments made from time to time by the selectors shall, as tho same arise, respectively be paid over to such County Council or Road Board, as the case may be.” Tho provisions of section 59 of tbe said Act shall not apply in respect of any pastoral lands sold ou deferred pay- . ments, but the whole of the payments made from time to time in respect thereof „ shall bo dealt with as ordinary land revenue. The Governor may, by proclamation in the “ Qasetto,” from time to time set apart out

of any rural lands adjoining any lines of railway, areas not exceeding acres in extent, as Tillage settlements, and may 1(1) subdivide such areas into settlements of not more than five acres and forty acres respectively, and (2) fix the price, not being less than the fixed upset price of land of the same description in other parts of the district in which any such allotment shall be sold, and the terms and conditions of such sale; and (3) appoint that any such allotment shall bo sold for cash immediately on purchase, or on deferred payments snbjeot to the conditions of the said Act; or (4.) Grant a lease of any such allotment for any term not exceeding ten years, subject to such rent and conditions as he shall think fit, and may grant in any such lease on such conditions that the lessee may at any time during the currency of his lease purchase the land described in said lease at a sum to be stated in such lease, not being less than as heroin above is mentioned for land on immediate payment; (5.) The Governor may at any time, by warrant under his hand, appoint the time at which any town, suburban, and rural lands shall bo offered for sale, whether or not any such land have at any time previously been offered for sale, provided that nothing herein contained shall annul the provisions of the 44th section of the said Act. _ From and after the commencement of this Act, when runs are put up for sale by auction, the person who shall be entitled to receive a license to occupy any run for pastoral purposes shall pay the half year’s rent in advance at the time, instead of the first year’s rent as provided by the said Act; and the said Act is hereby accordingly amended as follows : (1). In sections 122 and 123 respectively the words “The first year’s rent” shall be omitted, and the words “ First half year’s rent ” are substituted in lieu thereof. (2). In section 134 tne words following are inserted “ except as is here and before provided in respect of the first year’s rent.”