Land Administration.

Relative to special settlement regulations, Mr Ballance said they were as important as the provisions of the Act itself. While they provided for the settlement of the land they abolished the tender and auction systems, and established the ballot; In the Waimate Plains they had an instance of the effect of the tender system. Men tendering twice over the value, were now bankrupt and could not pay their rents, and were asking for assistance from the Government. In all parts of the colony the same results were observable; men having paid a price utterly out of comparison with the price of produce to-day. What was Major Atkinson's remedy for this state of things? Not to make the rents easy at the start, but to establish a Land Court to regulate the rent by the price of produce every two or three years. He was sure that the lessees would get the best of the Government if they adopted this plan, and rents would have a great tendency to go down and little tendency to go up. That was the statesmanlike proposals made by Major Atkinson and Mr Rolleston, who he supposed had been fascinated with the Irish Land Court. What had the Irish Land Court done? They had gone about reducing the rents and everything was supposed to be settled, but now no their Land Court was required. And the rents were still further lowered to tenants who were as much disinclined as ever to pay the rents. So it would be in this colony, it would disturb everything and settle nothing. It would entirely prejudice the fixity of tenure which, in his opinion, ought to be the basis of all prosperity. (Cheers.) Unless the people knew they had fixity of tenure, there could be no incentive to improvement, and this was the chief recommendation of the perpetual leasing system; it fixes the rent for a long term, and instead of being knocked down to the highest bidder, the person in possession I could take up a new lease, and everything was in favonr of the tenant who held for a long term of years. His own plan had been to fix the rents low—much lower than the market value, and then let the ballot de- page 13 cide. It was to the interest of the State to make their tenants prosperous, and not to grind the last penny out of them. (Applause.) If they continued in office, he intended next session to bring in a bill abolishing altogether the system of tendering and auction, and to substitute the ballot, as in the Special Settlement Regulations. He thought that was the right course to pursue, and not the Land Court. For his part, he would rather see a man pay too little than pay too much, and have the Land Courts continually disturbing the existing condition of affairs.