The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, March 29TH., 1913. A LAND POLICY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1081, 29 March 1913, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, March 29TH., 1913. A LAND POLICY.

The Wellington Evening Post has submitted a laud policy to the Government, as follows: —“Let the large estates in each district be inspected, and an expert report obtained as to the most suitable to provide the area required—resort being made to the largest estates first, but to none whose unimproved value does not exceed ,£20,000. These steps having been taken, the owners of the required area should then be notified that at the end of a reasonable period, say, twelve months, the maximum now allowed under the compulsory provisions of the Land for Settlement Act —the Crown would, by Gazette notice, take the area for the purpose of closer settlement at the land tax valuation, the purchase money to be paid in debentures, redeemable in ten years, charged upon the land guaranteed by the State. Let the land then be offered to the applicants by public tender on the deferred payment principle—s per cent, at once, and the balance spread over a period of ten years, with interest at the same rate as that fixed in the State-guaranteed debentures. When all the purchases under this deferred payment system have paid the full amount of the purchase money due by them, then, if the total of these payments exceeds the .amount of the debentures —that is, the price at which the land was taken—let there be paid to the owner the amount of such excess, together with interest for ten years, at the rate fixed in the debentures, after deducting all moneys spent on the land by the Crown on surveys, roads, bridges, and other works necessary to enable it to be sub divided and settled, and also one-quarter per cent, of the total proceeds to cover the cost to the Crown of collecting the moneys due, and otherwise administering the system.”