GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2581, 15 July 1882, Page 4

GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

- [hum usoouxiaßr iiM»BiM.j LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. Fbiday, July 14. The Council sat only twenty minutes. The Auckland College and Grammar Sohocl Bill was read a third time and passed. The .STe!son College Bill was read a first time. The Council rose at 2.50. HOUSE OF REP3ESENTATIVES. Thursday, Jtjxy 13. thb vaouant act. The Vagrant Aot Amendment Bill (Mr O'Callaghan) was read a third time and passed. Fbidat. July 14. The House met at 2 30 p.m. WELLINGTON HABBOB BOABD BILL. On the motion for the third reading of the Wellington Harbor Board and Corporation Land Act Amendment Bill, Ms DcLArjTOTjB, at considerable length, opposed tho Bill, and moved that it be postponed for a week. Mr Babboh" suggested that it should be referred to a committee again to report on its merits. Mr Mohtoomsby supported this. Mr DBLAtfTOrra Buceptod tbe suggestion, which was formally moved by Mr Seddon. Mr Coholly said the committee had already fully onquired into the Bill, so far as the power it con:erred went. After further discussion, The Hon. Major Ateihson stated the Government were advised that the Bill gave no furoheir powers of right than wero pretended to be given by the Aot of 1870. It only enabled those to be tested and enforced. After two hours and a half discussion, the Bill was read a third time on the voices. ASHBFBTOW COTTHITY COTTHOIIi. The Aeabuiton County Council Empowering Bill was read a third time. lITFOBMAL PBTTTIONB. A disouiision took place with regard to the reception of a petition of an informal •haraoter, through eaoh sheet not being signed. Mr EbliDWtok sugges'ted that a printed form of petition with directions should ba sold at a nominal prioe at all Post effijes. Mr O'CaeiliAOhaw suggested that directions for drawing petitions should be exhibited at post and telegraph offices and railway stations. The Hon. Major Atkinson undertook to take steps to disseminate information on the subject. PAYMBNT OP MBMBHBS,

A m;s;age was read from the Governor, oovariag a draft of a Bill to reimburse the exponsea of members attending Parliament and to provide for the same.

QUESTIONS. Replying to Mr Harris, The Hon. Major Atkinson promised to consider the reprinting of Provincial Highway Acts in the event of the Boad Boards Bill not passing this session. EVENING SITTING. The House resumed at 7.30. THE LAND BIIX. Mr Sutton resumed the debate on the second reading of the Land Bill. Mr Skddon oonsidertd it one of the most important measures before the Houie, and affecting the future of the country to a very great extent. He thought the attempt to force settlement within the last few years had been carried too far. The public ittares! a would not have suffered, or the settlers, if a great deal of deferred payment land had do. been taken up. It was a great hardship to inflict upon men without money to go away and settle on remote lands without having any experience. He did not think the deferred payment system a suooess. He did not think the urrears due would ever be paid . tip. The military settlement scheme had also proved a failure. He considered the auction system the fairest and best, preferable to either ballot or tender. He did not think those who had paid high prices at auction had any olaim to relief. He would support the first forty- three clauses in Committee, only on the distinct understanding that their applies* tion be confined str'otly to land in mining districts. He did not think the Grown tenants would be the better of not being allowed to borrow or rather being allowed to give security. For realty the tenants conld not borrow. The deferred payment settlers had foncdjthe hardihipof not being able to borrow. No man going in on a leasehold had a chance in the race of life with a nwita a freehold, even if acquired' on borrowed money. He did not think the Bill generally was really a liberal land law, but there was one remarkably liberal proposal to answer the question of " What shall we do with our girls ?" The Minister of Lands said, "Make them, farmers, and let them have 640 acres eaoh." They would have to provide agricultural colleges for the girls as well as for the boys. He •unamended the praotioe of opening up lands by roads before sale, as it was the best way of really promoting settlement. He entered into an elaborate calculation to show that men of small capital could not profitably take up and occupy 640 acres under the proposed leasing conditions. the leaseholders would, he was certain, come in time to Parliament for relief, as the deferred payment settlers were now doing. The leasing system would also tend to create an inferior class, as the leaseholders would be looked down on by this freeholders. It deferred payment settlers were to be relieved, then perhaps the plan proposed by the Bill was as good as any. He was sorry that ib was not proposed to place all Native lands under the administration of the Waste Land Boards. This was an urgent necessity. The oolony itself was borrowing money, and it was absurd for it to refuse to sell its land for cash. Ho would support the second reading, but would fry to improve the Bill in committee so as to make it workable and worthy of the Parliament.

Mr J. W.Thomsok differed entirety from Mr Sutton's viewß in regard to the deferred payment system, where it had failed the auotion system was entirely to blame. The Bill simply proposed to add anothor to the already existing various systems, and he thought a variety of systems tended to promote settlement. He did not altogether spprave of the leasing conditions, however, na thero was too muoh uncertainty of tenure about them. It might bo well to limit the quantity of land to ba opened for lease in any ono year. Too muoh power WfS given to tbe Governor in Council. The machinery for valuation appeared olumsy, and the relief to be afforded to deferred payment settlers wrss altogether insuffioknt. There was no encouragement to him to convert his holding into a leasehold. He regretted tbfifc there was no provision for the disposal of lond by ballot, but no doubt tho tender system was an improvement on the auotion •ygtem. Pastoral lands should be sold in muoh smaller areas. If they oauld solve the difficulty of settling land in small areas by bona fide settlers, they should also settle the question of poverty to a great extent. Mr Moss said the Government seemed to have been converted to the principle that the unearned increment belonged to the State. Ha disapproved of the leasing system, and denied that the Botorua experiment was an argument ia its favor, as the circumstances there w-re altogether exceptional.'lf the lond laws rero liberally administered this Bill weald not be necessary. Kr Itbss criticised the Bill in detail, and condemned it. The country hid not demanded and did not require a leasing system. Thoir land laws required to be simplified and liberalised, but not in the way proposed. He advocated a scheme of village settlement. The Bill afforded no inducement to tenants to psrmanently improve their holdings, but rather to get as muoh as they could out of the land and then abandon it. He would like to see the ballot substituted for auotion. The Bill was. unsuitable and unworkable. It would, if passed, destroy the reputation of the Minister of Lauds, who had certainly always shown his desire to give tho colony a liberal land law. Mr iforor. objeoted to the principle of the Bill, us it would still further complioate the already complex land laws. The abolition of the ballot system was a great blow at the cuecois of the deferred payment scheme. The same spirit which dictated this change seemed to havo inspired this Bill. He was in favor of making the education endowments common oroperty, administered as other Grown land* were. He -objected to subjecting the deferred payment eettlers to the prolonged torture proposed by the Bill. He would prefar to give them the 75 per cent, to allow them to go and start ■omewhero else. He wai in favor of trying the experiment of elective Land Boards.

Sir JoHir Hall bore testimony to Mr* Donald Beid's great devotion to the cause of land reform and the settlement of the people on (he land. He would support the eebond reading of the Bill, at it contained mac; valuable provisions, bat it also, he was sorrj to say, contained much that was ussalis faotory, and which he hoped would be elimi rated in committee. He contended that bi« Government had always given the deferred payment settlors the very pioV of the Un~ : . He did not think the deferred paympm cystem was open to the charges of eatab Wishing a tenancy of the monsy lender, but if suoh a tenancy was established, then undo! the leasing system the tenant could mortgato his interest, and the tenancy of the BUI would be to encourage men to go on to the land before it was prudent for them to do so. The leasing proposals were open to both politioal and eoonomio objections. The tenant farmer, if a sensible man, would know that if he left his land ia a state of high fertility ot the end of his lease, he would have to pay ' for it when renewing his lease. It was a tenant's interest simply to get aa muoh as he could out of the land, while he had it. The freeholder, on the contrary, was always trying to improve his land and increase its value. In England the oondition and supervision were entirely different from anything possible hero. Nine-tenths of the people of the colony had come here with the hope of owning a piece of land which they could call their own. This was human nature. If this Bill created a Grown tenantry it would be a discontented one, bent on converting their leases into freeholds. If the system were carried out he would like no better cry to go to the hustings on than that of the enfranchisement of the tenant farmer. The system would introduce a most undesirable element into our politioal life. These attempts to lease educational reserves had failed because people wants d to have land of their own. The system of leasing might be neoessary in mining distriots, in order to preserve the right of mining, but it should not go beyond this. The provisio- a as to pre-emptive rights were far from dear, and.not satisfactory. He did not think the proposed relief to deferred payment settlers was anything real. He was not] at all preared, however, to revert to the system of the ballot, remembering the evils attendant upon it when in force. He give the Government every credit for good intentions, and felt sorry to have to criticise their proposals adversely. The bill was not a liberal measure, and the leasing proposals wero fraught with grave political danger, and ha hoped the House would not pass them. Mr W. 0. Buchanan opposed the leasing olauses, but would vote for the second reading of the Bill. He was in favor of eleotcd Land Boards.

Mr J. MoKkhzib was otrongly in favor of eleotei Land Boards. The relief proposed to be given to the deferred payment settlers was a delusion. The disposal of pastoral lands as reoently exemplified in Otsgo was very wrong. He hoped that in committee the Bill would be altered so at to beoome a credit and benefit to the oolony, Mr Monbo thought the Bill unfair to the proposed tenant*, and denied that the provisions of the Bill were adapted to the mining districts. Mr Pxxh moved the adjournment of the debate, whioh was agreed to. The House rose at 12 15 till Monday at 7.80.