Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14,1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4268, 14 November 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14,1892.

Being the extended time of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is IDENTICAL

In our last issue appeared a letter of special interest on the value of a leasehold title. Our correspondent adduced plain evidence to show that however perfeot the leasehold tenure might be in theory, it was in practice a failure. He took for his example one of the "eyes" of the Bush district, the Mount Baker Block, a piece of country that had been lauded generally as specially advantageous for settlement. Then he showed that out of tho members of the Association to which it had been granted, only forty per cent, were on their land, and only thirty per cent, had effected inir proyements, He also alleged that even those settlers who were on their land were dissatisfied and discontented, On the other hand, he stated that in every instance within bis knowledge, where settlers had gone on their land with a freehold title or a right of conversion to that tenure, they had, to ft man, remained on their sections, It the facts are as stated by our correspondent, and we happen to know that he is in a position to obtain them at first hand, we can but come to the conclusion that the contrast between the two tenures stands as follows [—Leasehold, percentage of failures 60. Freehold, percentage of failures, nil,

That the Crown tenants in the Bush have for a long time past desired to convert their tenures into freeholds is a matter of notoriety, Some of them even had the audacity to once ask aid from Messrs Ballanie and John McKenzie when they visited that district nearly two years ago. They cannot realise the advantages they enjoy as leaseholders and feel (hat disinclination to serfdom which is so characteristic of Colonials. In vain has the member for Masterton tried to persuade people that a lease jn perpetuity is better than a freehold. Would ho himself, were h» the possessor of a freehold, exchange it for a lease in perpetuity and can. he rtjsQoyer a single person who would, prefer a lease in perpetuity to a freehold ? Jt is an insult to the common sense of the .community to maintain that a lease is superior to a freehold, T|jis (find of doctrine may be accepted by |hp trades unions pf hjg cities'and the advanced Radicals who hold that the soil should be worked for their benefit by crown tenants, but it will never be believed by the men living on the land. Nothing but a freehold is an adequate return, in their opinion, for the long hours of toil whioh they undergo, the hardships they endp and the privations which they suffer, It is only a question of time for the Cfotvn tenants of the Busk districts to become freeholders and if they unite to claim a freehold tenure the time they will have to wait will be but brief, '-..■.■