LAND SETTLEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 11 March 1913, Page 4

LAND SETTLEMENT.

Tho Wellington Evening Post has submitted a land policy to the Government which appeals to us, at first sight, as rational and effective. We regret that we have not space to deal with the proposals of our contemporary in full. Their main features are, however, as follows :—■

"Let the large estates in each district be inspected, and an expert report obtained a,s to those most .suitable to provide the area required—resort being made to the largest estates first, but to none whose unimproved value does not exceed £20,000. These steps having been taken, the owners of the required a.rea. should then be notified that at the end of a reasonable period—say, twelve months, the maximum now allowed under the compulsory provisions of the Land for Settlement Act —the Crown would by Gazette notice take the area for the purpose of closer settlement at the land'tax valuation, the purchase money to be paid in debentures, redeemable in ten years, charged upon the land guaranteed by tho State. Let the land be then offered to the applicants by public tender on the deferred payment principle 5 per cent, at once, and the balance spread over a. period of ten years, with interest at the same rate as that fixed in the State-guaranteed debentures. When all the purchasers under this deferred payment system have paid the full amount of the purchase money due by them, then, if the total of these payments exceeds the amount of the debentures —that is, the price at which the land was taken —let there -be paid to the owner the -a mount of such excess, ■together with interest for ten years at the rate fixed in the debentures, after deducting all moneys spent- on the land by the Crown on surveys, roads, bridges, and other works necessarv "to enable it to be subdivided and settled, and also one-quarter per cent of the total proceeds to cover the cost to the Crown of collecting the moneys due, and otherwise administering the system."