E OKTIC ULTUKE IN NEW ZEALAND. 



153 



Sec. are secured to the tenant should he from any cause be obliged to 

 forfeit or surrender his lease. 



The advantages of this system to the selector are manifest. When it 

 is taken into consideration that, with few exceptions, the Crown lands are, 

 in their prairie condition, incapable of profitable use, the advantage to 

 the settler of setting free his capital to develop the capabilities of the soil, 

 rather than having to expend it in the purchase of a freehold, is very 

 apparent. One of the most striking benefits of this system is the 

 advantage it gives to the man who, with little more capital than his 

 strong right arm, is enabled to make a home for himself, which under 

 the freehold system he would be unable to accomplish. 



The values placed on the Crown lands are, as a rule, low, for the State 

 does not so much seek to raise a revenue directly therefrom as to 

 encourage the occupation of the lands by the people : this occupation 

 indirectly secures an increased revenue, besides the other advantages 

 resulting from a numerous rural population. 



Again, underlying the whole of the New Zealand land system is a 

 further application of the principle of " the land for the people " — viz. the 

 restriction in area which any man may hold. This subject has been 

 forced upon the attention of the Legislature by defects in former systems 

 under which one individual with means at his command could appropriate 

 large areas, to the exclusion of his less wealthy fellow-settler. Under 

 existing conditions, where the price at which land is offered is fixed for 

 ever, and where choice of selection is by ballot, every would-be settler has 

 the same chance, and may hold under the Crown an equal area of land. 

 The quantity that a selector may hold is so fixed as to encourage the class 

 of moderate farmers, for up to the statutory limit the amount he may 

 select is left almost entirely to himself. The Act defines the amount of 

 land anyone may hold at 640 acres of first-class or 2,000 acres of second- 

 class land. These limits apply to lands which are thrown open for 

 optional selection ; but in some cases, where the quality of the land is 

 very good and the selectors many, the limit is by regulation made 

 smaller. 



In addition to the many advantages offered by the lease-in-perpetuity 

 system, the Land Act provides others, to meet the wants of different 

 classes. The general rule is that land thrown open for optional selection 

 is offered to the public under three different tenures, the choice of which 

 is left to the would-be settler. 



The three tenures are : — 



(1) Cash, in which one fifth of the purchase-money is paid down at 

 once, and the remainder within thirty days. The final title is not given 

 until certain improvements have been made on the land. 



(2) Lease with a purchasing clause, at a 5-per-cent. rental on the 

 value of the land ; the lease being for twenty-five years, with the right to 

 purchase at the original upset price at any time after the first ten years 

 and within twenty-five years, or to convert into a lease in perpetuity (3rd 

 tenure). 



(3) Lease in perpetuity, at a rental of 4 per cent, on the capital 

 value. 



There is another question which has been largely dwelt upon in late 



