How The Court Assessed Land Values.

He wished to tell his hearers how the Court proceeded when fixing the price the Government had to pay on acquiring a large estate. This was much what usually happened. Settlers saw an estate suitable for settlement. They petitioned the Minister and pressure was brought to bear on the Administration to take the land. The owner was alert. He knew the department had its eye on the land. He saw its officers going over it. When asked hie price he named a sum the Government could not afford. The treaty proceeded, and often the Government had to fight. The Herrick case was a good example. The Government took it the other day. Originally the Government offered £3 17a 6d an acre, but the owners asked £4 10s, which the Government thought extravagant. Private negotiations effected nothing, and the Government took the land by proclamation. The owners then claimed £5 10s an acre. They brought witnesses from all parts of the district, some of whom swore that the land was worth about £6. The owners said: "Oh, we offered it at £4 10s, because at that time we had another place in our eye, but someone has got it now, and we can't sell at £1 £4 10s." The Court gave them £5, or 10s more than they had asked a little while before. The Government had to pay £48,000 odd for the estate; the amount on which the Land Tax was fixed was £29,000 In other words, the Government had to nearly double the Land Tax value. The Hatuina case provided another example In the witness-box £200,000, he thought, was claimed as its value. Finally the Government bad to pay £141,000 for land valued for taxing purposes at £117,000. Up to 1905 the estates acquired totalled 132, and the Government had to pay £442,000 more than the value as fixed for taxing purposes. Then there was the Flaxbourne Estate. The owners claimed £300,000. The Government could get no local witnesses to give evidence on the valise of the land. One after another in the neighborhood turned their backs on us. Finally the Government had to bring witnesses from both islands and pay handsome fees. On the other side a host of witnesses from both that the property was worth all that was being asked for it. The Court of Appeal followed the English precedent in regard to filing a value. In England when land was compulsorily taken for railway purposes, etc., the Court had added a margin of from 10 up to 30 per cent, to the full value the owner had been able to prove. The Judges gave as their reason for this that if the State took land compulsorily care must be taken that the State paid for it and that the owner did not suffer any loss, Our own Court of Appeal also added a margin to the sum an owner made out as fair full value. Besides this, there were legal expenses and the cost of bringing witnesses long distances. All this had to be piled the price the State had to pay. On whose back did this fall? The Crown tenant had to pay 5 pet cent, on all the land had cost the State, including roading the estate and all the costs he had mentioned. The State had had to pay too much for much of the land taken under the Land for Settlements Act. When depression came, as come it must some day, he supposed either the Crown tenant would have to pay more than a fair rent or else he must go and ask the State to take the burden from him. As to acquiring estates, not an owner but could force the Government into the Compensation Court to-morrow. The State recog- page 13 nised that it had to pay dearly, and was [unclear: ced] into having to pay an excessive price. The Government, however, would continue prudently to purchase under the land for Settlements Act. Good work remained to be done in that way. But the joint he wanted to make was this: They could not rely on the Land fur Settlements machinery to provide all the land necessary to satisfy the land hunger of the colony's people to-day. To do that it woo necessary to look elsewhere.