The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1895. FAIR RENT BILL.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 69, 1 March 1895, Page 2

The Opunake Times. FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1895. FAIR RENT BILL.

The Parihaka Road Board, at its last meeting, had a circular on the above subject from the Commissioner of Crown Lands before it for consideration. The Board agreed that, taking into consideration the rents generally paid throughout the district, the introduction of a Fair Rent Bill was desirable, but the voluminous nature of the information required was too much for the Board to undertake to supply. Such information as asked for would not possess any value unless it were precise, and to obtain this would take a considerable amount of time and trouble. It is stated in the circular that “ Fair Rent ” means, in the case of agricultural or pastoral land, such a rent as the tenant can fairly make from the land after paying (a) cost of production ; (u) interest on capital invested, and (c) reasonable maintenance of himself and family. The main princixde of a Fair Rent Bill would be to review and readjust from time to time existing rents at the request of either landlord or tenant. The principle is sound in the light of the advanced legislation of the present time by which individual thought and action is sought to be abolished. We are spending yearly somewhere about £400,000 on education, and every year making education more compulsory, by which means it might reasonably be anticipated that we wore preparing the people of the country to better look after their own individual interests, but for every step taken in this direction, we have the Government going one better, to prohibit them from acting on their own convictions. They seek to regulate the hours of labor, to insist on them taking forced recreation by means of half holidays, to prohibit freeholds by forcing leases upon them, and in many other ways reducing the freedom of action of the individual. There are many cases in which rents are ruinous, and there is no redress for the tenant under the law as it at present stands, except going through the Bankruptcy Court, and on the other hand there are many cases in which rents aro so low that the landlords would hail such a measure with delight so as to he able to avail themselves of a review, and thereby obtain an increase. In towns especially would this be the co.se. Owing to increase in value of property there are many tenants who were fortunate, or may be foresaw future prosperity, who procured properties at mere nominal rentals, and now by increase of population and other circumstances aro the possessors of handsome incomes without any effort of their own, and these would oppose such a measure as far as they were able. The definition of A Fair Rent ” is very vague. First take cost of production in the case of agricultural land. How would this bo arrived at ? In this district the dairy industry is the principal means of using the land. It is admitted that if labor has to be paid for milking, and the recognised standard of eight hours a day worked, it would not pay any dairy farmer to continue operations, and if such a standard were fixed there would be no value whatever left in the land. Inactual practice, however, it is found that a man with a family by means of the dairy industry can realise a greater income than by any other means of farming. It is casually stated then that by no other means can so much be taken out of the land, but this is a misnomer. The statement should be altered to, “ By no other means can so much bo taken out ot a family.” There are many advantages, however, in connection with dairying which make family men prefer it to other moans of livelihood, the principal one of which is, that it keeps a family together and enables parents to retain control over their children for a greater period, when the young members are susceptible to the many temptations which they meet with if sent away from the parental roof to seek their own living elsewhere. On this account men will pay a high rent for suitable land to enable themselves to obtain these considerations. In many such instances the tenant is not only paying fair rent for the land, but is also handing over part of the just wages of himself and family to the landlord. The second condition set out by the circular is “ Interest on capital invested.” This is also vague. It would have been better il a rate per cent had been fixed as a standard, as

the rate varies so from G or 64 per cent to 10 per cent, or in some eases to even more. The third condition is, to our mind, the greatest stumbling block to the whole concern, viz., “ Reasonable maintenance of himself and family.” In order to obtain this information very inquisitorial proceedings would need to be instituted, and we do not think that very reliable information would be obtained in the first instance. Secondly, as land is constantly changing hands, what might he reasonable cost of living one year with one family might be a very unreasonable amount to expect a family to live upon the following year who might become possessed of the same property. Then again a bachelor may own a place and his expenses of living may not exceed 20s per week, and if the rent were fixed on this basis it would be a complete bar to a family man buying it, and if there were to be any such thing as fixity of tenure alterations could only be made at certain fixed periods. On the whole we cannot see how any very satisfactory measure could emanate from information supplied under the present schedules and enquiries. If the Government decides to step in between landlord and tenant at all, there would need to be some fixed means of valuation arrived at other than the terms submitted in the circular. No landlord would be prepared to let his land to a man with a large family if the tenant could come in and plead'cost of keeping them as a justification for a reduction in the rent. The only feasible way we see that a “ fair rent ” could bo fixed would be by the Government fixing a standard rate of interest on capital value as a legal rent. Then if triennial valuations were made by the Government, the same as used to be done for the Property Tax, there would be a solid basis to work on. In the Assessment Court fixed to deal with objectionSj both the landlord and the tenant should have the right of appeal. The landlord -would naturally, under such circumstances, endeavor to get the valuation made as high as possible, and the tenant should have the right of appeal against it, and by this means a fair rent would be stnfck. In fair play to the landlord the fact of a tenant’s family being frugal or not should not be made a matter of consideration for him. The Government may contemplate introducing a standard dietary scale for each inhabitant, and if this were done then each farm might be debited with the cost of keeping an average family of five and the rent struck on this basis, but we fancy this would ba even a step further than the present Government would be prepared to go.