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Session 11. 1921. NEW ZEALAND.

DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND SURVEY: NATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (REPORT ON) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st MARCH, 1921; TOGETHER WITH SCHEDULE SHOWING AGGREGATE AREA OF LAND EXCLUDED FROM THE ENDOWMENT.

Presented to both Houses of the General Assembly pursuant to Section 11 of the Land Laws Amendment Act, 1920.

Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington, 10th June, 1921. Sir — I have the honour to submit herewith report upon the national endowments, showing alsothe aggregate areas of land excluded therefrom and the aggregate area made freehold, &c., for the year ended 31st March, 1921. I have, &c, T. N. Brodrick, Under-Secretary for Lands. The Hon. D. H. Guthrie, Minister of Lands.

REPORT. The national endowment was established by the National Endowment Act, 1907, as a permanent endowment for the purposes of education and of old-age pensions. This enactment, which afterwards became Part VII of the Land Act, 1908, set apart an area of 7,000,000 acres in the various land districts of the Dominion as the nucleus of the endowment, and provided that until a total area of 9,000,000 acres would be reached all Crown lands then or thereafter held on renewable lease, or on small-grazing-run lease under the Land Act, 1892, or the Land Act, 1908, were to become part of the national endowment. On the 11th November, 1920, the date of the passing of the Land Laws Amendment Act, 1920, it was enacted by section 11 thereof that no lands were thereafter to become part of the national endowment. The prescribed maximum area was reached during the year ended 31st March, 1920. Section 11 of the Land Laws Amendment Act, 1920, further provides that the Governor-General may, by Proclamation approved in Executive Council, declare that the undermentioned lands shall cease tobe national endowment ; prescribes the manner in which unoccupied lands so excluded from the