Rangitikei Advocate. SECOND EDITION. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1907. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8801, 1 May 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. SECOND EDITION. WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1907. EDITORIAL NOTES

THE Farmers' Advocate gives a timely illustration of the treatment a fanner obtains when a State Department is interested in adjusting the valuation of his improvements. It states that some twerty odd years ago, under the 1885 Land Act, a stout hearted man wont away thirty -four miles into the bush ("solid greeu bush") to settle on la graizng run. These runs, as every one knows, are leased for twenty-one years, and if the tenant goes out at the end of the term he is entitled to his improvements. The lease may, however, be renewed. Tho settlor, towards the end of his lease, applied to have, it renewed. The Land Board thought that, as settlement had approach?! nearer, though the land was still thirty-four mil 29 from the railway, the land might be suitable for closer settlement, and a r.ingar was sent to report on the value of the improvements,• % and whether tho ran should bo -resumed and cut up into smaller areas. The land had been all felled, grassed and fenced, though there was no building on it. The cost of doing this was as follows:—The cost of bush-felling was 2is (id per acre :

£ s. d. 1148 acres at 22s 6d .. 12SU If) 0 Grassing 1148 acres at 12s 083 1(5 0 Fencing 304 chains; boundary fence wir'enetted at 30s; division fence at 16s 300 0 0

£2280 6 0 The valuation of the ranger was : Felling and grassing 1148 acres at 12s per acre .. 688 16 0 Fencing 30-1 chains at 16s 243 4 0

£932 0 0

The man who had invested £2280 fis in the land belonging to tho Government (who had only £ll4B in the land, tho original value being £1 per acre.) was to have the Government's value increased to £2496 6s at the expense of the tenant, jlwhose value was to be reduced to £B32 — yet the fencing was really more valuable than when erected, owing to tho increased cost of timber, and the fences had admittedly been kept up well, for the ranger valued them at 10s per chain. It could not be said that tho felling of the bush and grassing had been "exhausted"

(blessed word, like the old ladies' "Mesopotamia," it is the destructor which consumes the results of a man's labour). Were it to bo allowed to go back again to its original state by neglect, the value would be gone. And nothing is to be allowed to the settlor for interest on money (carriage of goods alone cost 40s a ton) when lie was haying the bush felled and not getting anything from it; or for the better access to the Gdverunienfc land (by roads) which tho settler and his neighbours had given at their own cost. Without further comment, we offer this as an example of what will happen if the OOTyears' lease becomes law. And wo ask any fair minded man : Can lie wonder at the Crown tenants, with such examples before them, asking that they should havo security of tenure, and demanding tho freehold.

THE position of Mr Collins as a ' member of what is humourously called the Conciliation Board must strike even the Labour Department as somewhat incongruous. A few weeks when there was a lull in the conciliation business 'Mr Collin:-; made a little excursion to Taranaki iu order to arouse the dairy factory employees to a- sense of their wrongs, and reduced an audience to a state of amazed silence as ho explained how the squat tors started dairy factories and plundered the co-operative suppliers by manipulating the tests. On Monday last tho vorsatile Collins appeared in a new capacity when the Board was hearing a dispute in tho timber trade. As secretary of the Workers' Union, ho had ; signed the claims of the men, and as conciliator it was his pleasing duty to adjudicate on thern. So long as Government allows such a farce as this to continue it is not surprising that employers are not enthusiastic about the quality of the justice meted out by the Conciliatory Collins.