PARLIAMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4221, 17 September 1892, Page 3

PARLIAMENT.

Legislative Council, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. THE LAND BILL. Before the debate on this Bill was taken,the Hon, Dr Pollen presented a petition from 600 members of the Auckland Small farms Association, the Bill be amended in the direction of tha optional right to purchase holdings after the conditions had been complied with for four years, and allowing three years' non-resi-dence on bush lands. The petition was referred to the Waste Lands Committee. In moving the second reading of •the Land Bill, the Hon, the Colonial Secretary said it was mainly a consolidating measure. In conclusion, he referred to the desirableness of preventing the accumulation of large areas of land by speculative companies. The Hon, Mr Stevens said he was strongly opposed to the disqualification of married women as holders of sections in their own right. Ho objected to the principle ol lease in perpetuity, and asked where the money was to come from to make surveys and defray the necessary expenses in • the settlement of .the land. The Ministry, he said, had been compelled to reMnise that the system of freehofljPnvould not be given up. The form of declaration under the two tenures would be inseparable from cunning and evasion, as if a holder wished to borrow he could only do so by getting into the hands of a class of usurers that would grow up undor the Act. The Bill admitted the prinoiple of aggregating runs up to a oarrying capacity of 6,000 sheep, and he did not see why it could not be carried on to 20,000 sheep. The speoial settlements could only succeed if%6y were made up of suitable 1 people, It was a wrong thing to givo any one man the power it was proposed to give the Minister in the expenditure of money for the purohase of land for settlement, There could not, the speaker continued,be a worse instance w " of malversation than the diversion of funds from the prosecution of the North Island Trunk Railway line to the purchase of lands. The Hon. Dr Grace, Baid that when people came to realise the value of ths OOjjjjeata' leate he thought they would cease to have the sentimental regard for (be freehold tenure. The great loss to the revenue, he believed, would be fully justified by the increase in settlement, He considered there was a disparity in making the EStne penalty for cattlo straying on forest land as for the cutting of forest timber, it was arbit«

rary allow Land Boards "-to cancel leasea without hearing evidence, and ho strongly took exception to. the clauso preventing jnarried women holding sections in the interest of their children. The peaaltiei for infringement of the Act

he likened to the use of a 08 pounder to kill a cook sparrow. For tho Minister's own sake he Jid not think such prodigious powor should be gwn as theplaoiug in tho hands of ono man the sums voted for tho development of villago settlements, The Hon, tho Colonial Secretary, in replying, denied that there was any sword held over the Council in regard to this Bill, but said the position of the Government was an unpleasant one in tho Council on account of the majority against them. Tho fear of capital being withdrawn from the colonies had bo far been shown to be groundless. Tho measure was then road a second time and referred to tho Wasto Lands Committee. UNEMPLOYED, Mr Wilson ashed whether the Government bad reoeived any communication from the Mayor of I'almerston North re tho number ot unemployed up there.—TJie Minister replied that he had ascertaied from enquiries that there was a demand for labour in that district, and he had sent men up there, There was a great demand for labour at Pahiatua, and he thought that as that place was only a day's walk from Palmerston the men might very well help them* solves to the extent of going there without tho assistance of the Government, (Hear, hear.)