CANTERBURY RUNS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5734, 15 August 1879, Page 2

CANTERBURY RUNS.

An interesting return has recently been presented to Parliament, showing the extent of the holdings under pastoral leases in the Provincial District of Canterbury. The Premier in his speech, in reply to Sir William Fox, made political capital out of the figures in a way which we consider can be by no means Justified by the return itself. The figures are arranged in two tables, and a summary of the larger holdings is the only one to which we desire to draw special attention at the present time. There are seventeen names contained in the list, and an area of 1,868,382 acres is held by these tenants under lease from the Crown. If the parties concerned really held on an average anything like a hundred thousand acres each, it might perhaps be made to appear that the tenants had been able to absorb a far greater extent of land that might be altogether desirable. But a consideration of the list will show that nothing of the sort is really the case. Among the larger holders there are only six names of private individuals and two of joint holders as partners. Altogether these ten persons hold, in round numbers, about 380,000 acres under lease, and those who know the nature of the land held under pastoral leases in Canterbury affirm that the average acreage held by those men is by no means an excessive area for ten tenants to occupy. All the really large holdings are occupied by companies ; and chief among these must be mentioned the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency, with 646,000 acres, and the Trust Agency Company of Australasia, which holds 427,000 acres. The Canterbury and Otago Association, and the New Zealand Loan and Trust Agency, are the only other companies which hold more than 100,000 acres. It is satisfactory to note that in New Zealand the banks hold but very little of the land in the schedule, and in this respect these returns differ very materially from some which we published some six months ago relating to land in pastoral occupation in New South Wales. In the figures which we then gave we pointed out that five of the Sydney banks held no less than ten millions of acres. Startling as these figures may be, it is necessary to bear in

mind that for tho whole of that area only £15,000 a year rent was paid. The area held by the banks in Canterbury is quite insignificant ; the Bank of New South Wales holds 34,000 acres, the Bank of New Zealand holds 19,000 acres, and the Union Bank of Australia holds 34,000. The highest rent paid only amouncs to £I6OO, and the Bank of New Zealand only pays £222 per annum. It is somewhat remarkable that the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company should occupy so much land in New South Wales. The area held by the Company in the sister colony is 1,150,000 acres at an annual rental of £1219 ; in Canterbury it holds 640,000 acres, but at a rental of £9464. Pew people are probably aware that companies are perhaps by far the largest landowners in the colonies. In the New South Wales return, to which we have alluded, it appears that the Trust and Agency Company of Australasia holds no less than 2,205,000 acres in New South Wales at an annual rental of £3083, and 427,000 acres, at a rental of £8472, in Canterbury. Although not strictly relevant to the point to which we desire to draw attention, it may not be out of -place to point out the enormous difference in the letting value of pastoral land in New Zealand as compared with New South Wales, which is shown by the above figures. We have not the figures before us to show to what extent freehold land in Canterbury, or in the rest of New Zealand also, is held by companies, but if it bears anything like a similar proportion to that set forth in the list before us, it would appear that the large holdings in this colony are almost exclusively in the hands of companies. Any person may own shares in any of the land and loan companies to which we have referred, and judging by the large areas held by them, it may,be fairly assumed that farming is found to be a profitable portion of the business, otherwise these areas would doubtless soon fall into other hands. The eighteen holdings which are returned as a summary of the larger holdings bring in, in round numbers, £35,300 of annual rental. The whole of the pastoral leases in tho Canterbury provincial district bring in £82,000. We have shown that the areas held by private individuals, whose names are contained in the list, are not excessive, and that practically the large runholders in Canterbury of whomwe have heard so much are mythical personages, and that the larger properties are chiefly rented by companies, consisting in the aggregate of large numbers of persons, who, in point of fact, find that it pays them infinitely better to do their shesp farming by proxy than in person. There is one other point to which we desire to allude. By a return recently compiled, we understand that the private debt of the colony on mortgage alone amounts to about £18,000,000 sterling. It would be interesting to know how many of these Canterbury leases are in reality held solely by the persons in whose names they stand. Mortgagees are in effect joint owners, or sleeping partners, in the farming business of the colony, and it would be quite unfair to ignore their share in the ownership of many, if not most, of these leases. In the new constitution which has been passed in California this fact has been recognised, and mortgagees are regarded as joint owners of the land for the purposes of taxation. We publish a summary of the Canterbury leases in another column, which we heartily commend to the attention of our readers. They bear out the view we have always taken—that large owners are exceptional, and that the areas held and the rents paid by individuals are for the most part very moderate. Two companies alone pay nearly a fourth of the whole of the rents, and these companies probably represent some hundreds of the very people in whose interests Sir G. Obey thought himself justified in secretly holding back an Act which had passed both Houses of Parliament, in order that it might not receive the Governor’s assent; one object of that Act being to assure to those tenants the continuance of their leases until 1882. The following is a summary of the larger holdings under the pastoral leases in the Provincial District of Canterbury :

Memo, iy Commissioner of Crown Lands. — There is in some cases but a small advance on present rates; this applies to the back country of the Timaru district and the neighborhood of the lakes about Mount Cook. In other cases the new rates are three times or five times the present rates ; this applies to the plains and the runs on the eastern seaboard. All previous legislation regulating the rents to be paid for runs in Canterbury have been based on an uniform acreage rate without regard to locality or relative value, and hence the very wide difference between the amount of advance in one case and in another.

Acreage Total Kent. Acres. £ Murray- Aynsley, H. P. .. 15,722 237 Australian Mortgage Company 23,915 627 Bank of New SoutU Wales 34,983 1,204 Bank of New Zealand 19,788 222 Canterbury and Otago Association .. 115,950 3,233 Campbell, Robert 1,C90 35 Gould. George 81,381 1,079 Gerard, W 143,309 2,301 Mathieson’s Agency 48,992 1,189 N.Z. Loan and Trust Company 105.419 2.866 N.Z, Loan and Mercantile Agency .. 646,537 9,464 Sutton, J. A. and G. A. 61,340 606 Trust and Agency Co. of Australasia.. 427,427 8,472 Teschemaker and LeCren 21,801 727 Tooth, K 53,077 980 Union Bank of Australia 34.701 1,691 Williamson, James 37,350 432