LAND AGGREGATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 284, 23 April 1913, Page 8

LAND AGGREGATION.

Tllli GOYKRXMEXT 111-POET.

A XKW HILL PROMISED. Per Press Association. Wellington, Tuesday. The Prime Minister states that a report lias come to hand from tlic Lands Department showing that there has been aggregation to some extent, Imt not as the result of last year's Land Act, and that in the districts where aggregation was supposed to have taken place there have been no such cases since the present Government took office. Referring to the Commissioners' report, Mr. Mas spy said that in many cases settlers were placed on sections of poor land, from which it was impossible to make a living, and these men were either allowed to increase their area, or many sold to others who remained. As to the general question, the Government was against reaggregation. So far as Crown lands were concerned, the Act of last session seemed to have been effective, though in some cases a difficulty with regard to financing had cropped up, which would have to be met, but he intended in the next Land Bill to ask Parliament to agree to proposals which he believed would make reaggregation exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Of the Mangaweka district, the Land Commissioner in his report to the Premier says: As all the land near Manga - .weka was alienated before 1900 tliei-e is 110 power in law to check aggregation in that locality, and there were only three cases of any importance, affecting areas from 1111 acres to 4123 acres, lie also found nine people of the same name in one locality holding an area, but they belonged to four different families not related to one another. Other eases that had been mentioned were admittedly only sufficient to make a comfortable living from, and were occupied by bona fide settlers, I Only about ten acres in the vicinity of Mangaweka have been converted into | freehold under the 1912 Act, and the Commissioner considers there is no foundation for the articles published in the Mangaweka paper. He mentions a case in the Wellington Land District, where two brothers hold 10,190 acres freehold, but only 090 were bought from the Crown, and nearly the whole of this land was alienated before 1888.