NEW ZEALAND 



1892. The second, third and fourth were carried out by 

 the laud acts of 1892 aud 1894, but the fifth was com- 

 promised after an earnest fight — leases in perpetuity (999 

 years) with no right of repurchase and no revaluations, 

 leases for 25 years, with right of purchase after 10 years 

 and the optional system with residential and improvement 

 conditions, being accepted by the government in place of 

 the desired perpetual leases in order to carry the other 

 provisions of the land acts. The legislation secured, 

 though not up to the ideal of its promoters, was neverthe- 

 less sufficient to turn the tide from concentration to 

 diffusion of the ownership and benefits of the soil, and win 

 the victory for the people in the great battle between the 

 settlers and the monopolists, w^hich has been going on since 

 the foundation of the colony. The Land for Settlements 

 Act, of 1892, authorized the Governor to acquire any land 

 by contract with the owner, to be disposed of in lots not 

 exceeding 320 acres and only in lease in perpetuity at 5 per 

 cent, rental, whether it was rural, suburban or town land. 

 Other resumption clauses were contained in the Land Act 

 (1892). But the lack of compulsory power made the 

 working of the law quite unsatisfactory. Nearly a million 

 acres were offered under it to the government in 1893, t)Ut 

 much of it was poor and unsuitable and the price asked for 

 the rest was usually excessive. It was not till 1894 that 

 the principle oi compulsory purchase of large estates was 

 enacted into law, and the Ministry had effective means of 

 carrying out their purposes. 



A '* prescribed maximum " area is fixed by the law in 

 respect to each class of land, and a much smaller maximum 

 in the case of land within five miles of a city. If any 

 person or company has more than the prescribed area the 

 government can take, by compulsory process, the excess 

 above the prescribed area or the whole block, if the owner 

 does not want it divided. 



The lands acquired by resumption must be divided and 

 cannot be disposed of by sale, but only on least in 



