BUYING UP THE BIG ESTATES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3112, 25 June 1892, Page 1 (Supplement)

BUYING UP THE BIG ESTATES.

In riew of the suggestion that the Government should bay up some of the big estates in the colony to throw open for settlement in small sections, the Napier Daily Telegraph, in a leading article, thus deals with the question. As an investment, the transaction would not appear to commend itself :—Many people have expressed the desire that the Government should buy up Mr Thomas Purvis Russell's estate of Woburn. This property for years has been the Naboth'a vineyard to men of the stamp of Sir Robert Stout, who coret it for the purpose of putting men on the land and of driving sheep off it. Woburn has furnished many a text for the adornment of a tale and for the pointing of a moral against the wickedness of absenteeism. And when the place was valued for the land tax, the assessment was objected to on behalf of the owner, many a Liberal rubbed his hands and said : " Now's the chance for the Government to seize it." But the question is : Will it pay to take it over in the only way in which the Government can " seize " it? The estate consists of about 25,083 acres, and was valued under the property tax at £112,873. When the Court of Review sat at Waipawa the other day a valuation was arrived at of £4 17s Gd all round, or £122,270, omitting fractions. It follows, therefore, that if the Government wish to take the property that sum will have to be given for it with 10 per cent, added (£134,490) —rather more than £5 7s an acre. Having acquired it, the country would have to be surveyed and cut up into suitably sized small farms and small grazing; blocks, a good 10 per cent, of the land would have to be deducted for roads from the available acreagd for sale, and a due regard shown that each block had a permanent supply of water. When all expenses are paid and the roads laid off, we doubt very much whether the Government can afford to sell the property at less than £7 per acre —a price no one could give for small blocks of it, taking into consideration the absence of timber for fencing or firewood. It may be argued, however, that the Crown would not part with the fee simple, but would only let it on the permanent leasehold basis, and at 5 per cent, tenants in pleufcy would be found to snap the country up. Five per cent, on £7 per acre is 7s per acre rent, and for land that is not particularly good except for grazing that is a very high rental. At that figure the Government would obtain a rental of £8775 a year from the investment, which would come out of the pockets of the rack-rented tenants. Now, Mr Russell runs 41,000 sheep over the country, which would net him about £S2OO a year—somewhat less, it will bo seen, than the 5 per cent, that the Government would demand from their tenants. On the whole, we are inclined to think it would not pay the colony to takeover Woburn.