LAND ON DEFERRED PAYMENTS.

Patea Mail, 25 June 1881, Page 4

LAND ON DEFERRED PAYMENTS.

In New South Wales land is sold at a fixed price of £1 per acre, of which five shillings per acre is paid on selection. No further payment is required for a period of three years, after which one shilling per acre is payable annually, a part of which is for interest on the outstanding debt at the rate of five per cent, per annum, and the balance goes for payment of the principal. There are further conditions as to occupation. If the periodical payments are not made, the land is by law forfeited, but this condition has never yet been enforced. This system has been carried out on a most extensive scale in New South Wales. It was stated by Sir Henry Parkes at a public dinner a short time ago, that the debt to the Government on these deferred-payment lands amounted to £9,000,000 and that the payment of interest last year was as much as £200,000. As soon as the three years have elapsed on all existing selections, the annual interest will be £450,000. The average extent of these holdings is said to be about 100 acres. A large proportion of the electoral body in New South Wales have taken upland in this way, and are consequently in debt to the Government. These land occupiers, being also electors, have brought pressure to bear upon the Government to get rid of the interest on this debt. Mr FitzGerald, who lately visited New South Wales on behalf of the New Zealand Government, says,—lf that interest were abandoned, a sum of £200,000 of annual taxation would require to be imposed in other directions to make up the deficiency. But more than this ; there are omnious signs of an impending struggle on the part of the land selectors to get rid altogether of their liabilities to the Government.