THE FREEHOLD TENURE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 510, 19 October 1912, Page 5

THE FREEHOLD TENURE.

CONVERTING L.I.P. LEASES. THE UNEARNED INCREMENT. Surprising figures were given by the Prime Minister on Wednesday evening in regard to the present value of leases in perpetuity during bis speech in moving the second reading of the Land Bill. Mr Massey said he wished to deal once and for all with the statement that this proposal to give the holders of leases in perpetuity the right to acquire the freehold involved a sacrifice of som millions of the country's money. At his request Mr Morris Fox, the ■Government actuary, whose calculations could not be questioned, had gone into the matter. Mr Fox stated that, according to the Year Book, the unimproved value of all land in New Zealand was £1,840,000. Presuming that all that value was unearned increment, and that the land was held under leases, with 989 years to run (it being taken that the leases had been running an average of 10 years), then the present value of the country's interest in the unearned increment, estimated at five per cent., would be worth less than one ten thousand millionth of a penny. That was the present value of the total of £182,000,000.