SPECULATION IN CROWN LANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 256, 27 March 1914, Page 7

SPECULATION IN CROWN LANDS.

REMARKS BY THK TARAXAKI COMMISSIONER. At the commencement of the Taranaki Land Board's meeting on Wednesday Mr. G. H. Bullard (Commissioner of Crown lands) in the course of a short speech on the business before the Board, remarked that there were several applications before the Hoard in which aggregation was contemplated. Most of them (if the country was,'as is represented, not fit for dairying or agriculture) were perhaps not altogether unreasonable. Personally, he always felt inclined to resist aggregation of dairying country, however small the area. There were also two applications in which the consideration money, taking into account experience with tenants of the same surrounding land, seemed unduly high. The circumstances surrounding one and the short time it had been held, seemed to him to point unmistakably to speculation pure and simple, and lie thought the Board should take into consideration the advisability of a pointblank refusal. If the parties thought themselves aggrieved I hey had the remedy of being able to make it freehold. He had hitherto been chary of asking the Board to interfere in a contract if it was assured the incoming man had gone fully into the position, iis a refusal on account of high consideration logically placed on the Board the duty of fixing goodwill, but at the same time the Board must consider the State's interest, and if a tenant was subject to heavy interest charges over and above the rents he would be crippled in his farming and would be coming to the Board for postponement of rents, etc. The Board quite rightly, in the interests of financing settlement, protected the interests of mortgagees as far as possible, but in order to do that effectually it should see that the land was not too heavily encumbered by inflated values. The successive agents' fees alone on some of the sections must make a large addition to the cost of much of the land. 'Die Board's business was more to protect the man coming into and using' the land than with those who simply regarded the Crown's interest practically as u loan on which they were (laying a very low rate of interest. In the press. Parliament, and elsewhere it was asserted that too high a value was being set on waste land of the. Crown, but if some of these goodwills were fair value tliey were not charging half enough, and if the profit of the outgoing man was equitable it did not seem to him a hardship for him to pay down the Crown's price of the land. There was a tendency, too, for the parties to arrange stock deaU and take up residence before tliey obtained the Board's consent. If the Board's control was to be real and not a mere form it should insist upon its consent being obtained before possession look place. The distance from educational facilities was often given as a reason for proposed transfers. Members of the Board expressed themselves ill agreement with the views "I' (lie Commissioner.

Mr. TTeslop said lie looked upon tin* P.oard ;is the tnislce of the public es-

(ale. ami i( wns its duly, in the interests of tlx* Stale, to see that (lie man lomihS' i" would be in a position to pnv his way.