AN ABSURD DISTINCTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8863, 24 October 1907, Page 4

AN ABSURD DISTINCTION.

The original Land Bill, introduced by the Minister for Lands, would, if it had been converted into law, have proved a most disastrous measure to the country. It was a piebald bill, and the Land Laws Amendment Bill, which has just passed its third reading, although decidedly different from the original bill, is, also, of a piebald nature. It grants the freehold in one case and denies it in another, while the leasehold clauses an more faddy than practical. It is unquestionable thai, simply in order to curry favour with pseudo-socialists in the cities, the Government refuse to give Crown tenants, under the lease-in-perpotuity on settlement lands the right to acquire the freehold. Lease-in-perpetuity holders on ordinary Crown lands have the right to acquire the freehold The distinction made between the two classes of lease-in-perpetuity holders is simply absurd. It is obvious that it would be greatly to the advantage of the State as a whole to dispose of its interest in lease-in-perpetuity lands, whether ordinary Crown land or settlement land. If every lessee of land acquired under the Lands for Settlement Act were to acquire the freehold of his land, the State would be richer by some millions, and the land ol' those acquiring the freehold would be liable to greater taxation than is at present -levied, or can be J levied as the law stands at present.