ADMINISTRATION OF LAND ACT, 1885.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2311, 28 January 1892, Page 2

ADMINISTRATION OF LAND ACT, 1885.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —You were good enough to publish a letter from me in reference to what I considered the harsh and unfair treatment of a Crown tenant of Southland was subject to at the hands of the Minister of Lands, who was responsible for the settler being sued for a penalty of £3l for allowing his rent, Ci payable in advance,” to become 31 days overdue. Since I wrote to you the case has been heard, likewise a similar case in Christchurch ; in the former a verdict was given for full penalty of £3l,‘’in the latter Mr Beetham, R.M., of Christchurch, who usually decides such cases from an equitable rather than a legal point of view, refrained from deciding off-hand so important a matter without mature deliberation, as there was no precedent to guide him. But no matter whatever the ultimate result may be it is a scandalous thing that men who have paid 20s in the £ (and both the men in question have done so) should be subject to such gross tyrrany, and what appears like petty spite on the part of a Minister exercising for a time his little brief authority. Had any private individual leased his land to a tenant subject to like penalties, and attempted to enforce them like our present Minister of Lands has done, he would have been greeted by a howl of indignation from all honest and fair dealing persons. In the interests of Crown tenants and land settlement generally, such proceedings as I complain of should be emphatically condemned, as anyone conversant with the wreat difficulties settlers have to contend with know how necessary it is for them for a number of years to lay out every fraction of their profit in improving and cultivating their holding for the sake of making a bare subsistence. Surely such men are deserving of every encouragement in their thankless, and oft-times profitless task. But the Hon. John McKenzie evidently thinks differently, or why should he by such paltry, wretched persecution (it is more, than prosecution), seek to harras and worry settlers into paying penalties, which no respectable private landlord dare attempt to extort; and which no previous Minister for Lands has sullied his good name by attempting to do. Ido not write this in any partisan spirit, I simply judge, not the man, but his measures, which I condemn. For any Minister who would stoop to such unjustifiable enforcement of an idiotic clause of a Land Act is worse than the clause itself. Application was made at the Land Board, Invercargill, for a refund of the money, but the Receiver of Land Revenue stated he had telegraphed for instructions but had received.- no reply, so could not comply with the request. Your paragraph in Thursday’s paper states it can be refunded on giving explanation of delay in paying rent. It may be so, but what man would care to sacrifice his independence by crawling to the feet of a Minister for Lands in abject supplication for the return of money obtained from him by a simple process very like extortion ? I venture to say that no one would, unless perchance a Grown tenant in poverty stricken circumstances might do so to enable him to hold a balance wherewith to meet any future extortionate claims. It is high time such proceedings were finally closed, and that in the future the Hon. John McKenzie’s aims tended more towards further peeress and prosperity of the many, rather than In endeavours to injure the interests, or irritate the feelings, of the frw. —I am, etc,, George J. Wreathaei,.

["The following telegram, dated InverIcargill, January 26th., deals with the I subject of Mr Wreathall's letter;—The ! case qf Mr Haldane, the pastoral tenant who was fined by the B-pcgivgr of Land Revenue the maximum penalty of £l per day for being thirty-one days late in payment of rent, was before the Land Board to-day. The Crown Solicitor's opinion was read to the effect that the penalty must be fixed and recovered through the R.M. Octurt, but the. members expressed the opinion that it was tfte intontion of Parliament that the board should assess the fine, Mr Haldane wrote admitting his fault, and stating that he had no money when the rent fell due. It was resolved t& reu'Jce tllS .amount to one shilling per day, and the Receiver was instructed to submit future crises of a similar nature to the Board, to/give them an opportunity to fix the fine. The receiver, Mr McNab, in a letter to the Board said :—" As an accounting officer [ to the Treasury, I am responsible for moneys collected, and might be surcharged

with any deficiency. The Act fixes the penalty at any sum not exceeding one pound a day. Having no discretionary power, and the penalty being outside the juridiction of the board, I was called upon at a moment's notice to take a definite course, and I adopted the only one left to me, namely, to demand the maximum penalty, and refer the matter to the head office. The agents, instead of approaching the Department as supplicants for favour, and requesting that their neglect be condoned, simply stigmatised my action as absurb, and demanded that the penalty be remitted, without offering the least excuse for delay. Under the circumstances the head office instructed mo to insist upon payment." No doubt this will satisfy Mr Wreathall. In his overweening vanity he thought he would crush Mr McKenzie by the weight of his invectives, but it appears to us that the Minister of Lands is likely to survive the attack. It will be seen now that Mr McKeuzie had nothing to do with it. The facts of the case are that air Haldane placed his case in the hands of Mr Walter Hislop, Manager of the Perpetual Trustees Estate and Agency Company. Mr Hislop wrote an arrogant and over bearing letter to the department—such a letter as Mr Wreathall would write—and this annoyed the officers, with the result that they insisted on the law being adhered to. It was a matter for the Land Board, and not for Mr McKenzie, and the Land Board has now dealt with it. The Hon. J. McKenzie did not make the law; and harshness is entirely foreign to all his actions. Instead of trying to harrasa Crown tenants he has been trying to improve their position. In the Bill which he carried through Parliament last year he proposed to reduce their rents from 5 per cent, to 4 per cent, on the value of the land. He also proposed to give them the land for the first three years without rent. The Legislative Council threw thiß out, and Mr Wreathall ranks himself on the side of those who thank God they | had a House of Lords to do it. Notwith- ■ standing that he sides with the Council which did this, Mr Wreathall wishes to poso as the great champion of Crown | tenants, but it won't do. As its voice | betrayed the pragmatic jackdaw, so his actions betray Mr Wreathall. Just one word more. Unless Mr Wreathall uses milder language in future, his letters will not be published in this paper.—Ed.]