NEW ZEALAND 



perpetuity. The rent is 5 per cent, on tlie land value, as 

 estimated at the beginning of the lessc, and if at any time 

 for sufficient cause the lessee is luiable to pay, the Minister 

 may remit a year's rent. The Consolidation Act of 1900 

 empowers the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the 

 Receiver of Land Revenue to grant at their discretion to 

 an}' tenant not in arrears a rebate of 10 per cent, on any 

 installment in order to encourage punctual payments. 

 Where tenants take lands with buildings thereon they have 

 to buy the buildings by half-yearly payments extending 

 over a term of years, and in the meantime pay interest on 

 their value at 5 per cent. The profit to the government 

 from land repurchase has been large. 



Before 1890 the tide of population was from the 

 country toward the cities, but the land policy has turned 

 back the movement of the people toward the soil. The 

 holdings have increased over 60 per cent. Instead of one 

 man in four being the holder of farming lands, as was the 

 case in 1892, in 1904 one man in two was the holder of 

 rural lands. Many of the comparatively poor have been 

 the chief gainers by the land policy. In the year 1894 the 

 Government Loan Office was established through which 

 public funds are loaned to farmers, laborers, business men, 

 etc., and at low interest and on easy terras. The situation in 

 the early nineties naturally led the people and their 

 representatives to look to government lending as a means 

 of relief from and protection against excessive interest and 

 unreasonable conditions. In .spite of falling prices and 

 industrial depression the banks and money-lenders would 

 not reduce the rates of interest, but rather increased them. 

 The farmers' income was diminishing whilst his 

 interest was increasing. In this predicament it occurred to 

 him that the Government, his Government, the great firm 

 in which he had an interest which could borrow money at 

 3 or 3j4 per cent., could lend money to him at .a more 

 urea&onable rate of interest. A law therefore passed author- 



