THE LAND AND THE FREEHOLD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8489, 18 July 1907, Page 7

THE LAND AND THE FREEHOLD.

A MISAPPREHENSION. EXPLANATION BY THE MINISTER. Some misapprehension appears to have existed in regard to that portion of the Financial Statement which referred to the right of Crown tenants to acquire the freehold. "The present holders of leases in perpetuity," the Statement sets out, "will be offered the option of the freehold," at a price to be fixed by arbitration. In some quarters this was understood to mean that lessees both of ordinary Crown lands and land for settlements lands —that is lands purchased by the -Crown under the Land for Settlements Act —would be entitled to change their lease-in-perpetuity tenTire into the freehold. "That." said the Minister for Lands, to a Wellington Post reporter yesterday, "is not what the Government intends. The proposal is that only lessees in perpetuity of ordinary Crown lands shall be allowed the option of acquiring tbe freehold. Those who have taken up land for settlements lands will be enabled to pay off up to 90 per cent, of the capiatl value of their holdings, as was proposed under tie Bill brought down last year." Those members of the House of Representatives who constitute what is known as the Land Reform Party, numbering about twelve, have not yet decided what attitude they will take up on the freehold proposals of the Government. They propose to hold a meeting to consider the question before the debate on the Budget commences.