WEST COAST LEASES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 212, 16 December 1910, Page 7

WEST COAST LEASES

EFFECT OF RECENT AMENDMENT The holders of what are known as old leases under the West Coast Settlement Reserves Act have had their position ] very much improved by an amendment t introduced into the Native Land Claims y Adjustment Act passed this session. When these lands were put up, there were regulations issued under which it was provided that compensation was to be paid for improvements up to £5 per acre. Amongst the improvements mentioned was reclamation of land. It was k understood that this covered bushfelling and draining. When the leases were drawn out only buildings and fencing 1 were mentioned in them. In all cases 1 where lessees under the Act of 1802 conJ verted their leases from old into new leases " under the latter Act, they were allowed ' compensation for all improvements up to £& per acre. As a doubt had been rais- ' ed, the Public Trustee brought the mat- ■ teh before the Supreme Court in the case • of C. W. Tinkler, whose lease was first to expire. The ruling of the Court was that L only buildings and fencing could, under ■ tlhe text of the leases, be claimed and '■ allowed for as improvements. This plac- ' ed holders of the thirty-year leases in a i very unsatisfactory position, because the >. regulations issued, when they took up i the leases, cleanly gave them to under- : stand that bushfelling, etc., would be rei paid to them, and' the leases would naturally be thought by them to be in con- , formity with the conditions set out in the regulations. We daresay three-fifths i of the lessees would have signed the leases, where pencil marked, without even reading them. Section 4of the Native Land Claims Adjustment Act just : passed provides that lessees are to get full benefit for anything which is an improvement within the meaning of that , word in the Land Act, so that it now makes it clear that they are to get , bushfelling, grassing, draining, etc., up i to £5 per acre. Of course these old . leases will still have to go up for public , competition in exactly the same manner as Tinkler's lease was dealt with. This was understood from the commencement , and lessees have no ground for complaint [ so long as they are only subjected- to 1 fair market competition. If, however, as it was expressed in a recent report of the Public Trustee, it is intended: to place the Maori owners in comeptition with them, then it will cause a great amount [ of dissatisfaction, as naturally the owners would be in a position to either out- ' bid the present holders, or at any rate to bump up the rents to a rack renting point, which would not be satisfactory to the lessees, nor do we think it would be for the benefit of the district.—Opunake Times.