LAND SETTLEMENT

The history of land legislation and settlement in New Zealand reflects the social, economic, and political pressures of the times. In the earliest years of planned settlement, attempts were made to put into practice the colonising theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield by charging a “sufficient price” for land. In 1853, to meet the urgent need of the infant colony for population, Governor Grey initiated a policy of providing cheap land for settlement. This policy and concentration on pastoral farming in time brought about the problem of undue aggregation of farm land. The development of dairying in the 1880s, coupled with unemployment in the towns, saw the Liberal Government adopt a policy of closer settlement to aid the establishment of small farmers. Since then, land settlement policy has been based on the principle of “one man, one farm”, and land legislation has been directed towards closer settlement of farm land and the prevention of undue aggregation. Since 1929 the State has gone beyond its previous role of subdividing and financing settlers on to undeveloped land and has, itself, carried out large-scale land development work before offering the land for settlement. Experiments in land settlement have been numerous, and legislation voluminous and complicated, successive Governments leaving a legacy of diverse tenures for Crown land. Because of this involved history only the more important trends are outlined.

This article deals in turn with early land purchases before 1840; settlement from 1840 to 1852; the provincial era until 1876; the period of early general Government legislation until 1890; Liberal land policy for closer settlement, 1891–1911; settlement since 1912; and present-day land policy and development.

Early Land Purchases Before 1840

Earliest European settlement was of a transitory nature, but in time European traders established themselves mainly at the Bay of Islands, and many bought land from the Maoris. Missionaries were also among the earliest purchasers of land as early mission stations became centres of permanent European occupation and farming. Transfers of large blocks of land were few. But when it seemed likely that the British Government, despite its reluctance, would assert the sovereignty of the Crown over New Zealand, the country's first land boom began. In 1837, for instance, Captain William Hobson, sent by Governor Bourke of New South Wales to protect the Bay of Island settlers during a Maori tribal war, reported that the increasing white population had acquired considerable possessions of land from the Maoris. Trade in land reached a peak in 1839, Sydney traders indulging in what they called “bona fide speculation” but in what officials called “land sharking and grabbing”.

The era of uncontrolled land purchase was, however, coming to an end. On 14 January 1840, while New Zealand was under shadowy jurisdiction of New South Wales, Governor Gipps issued a proclamation forbidding future land sales except to the Crown. Subsequently, land commissioners were appointed to investigate all purchases. A similar proclamation was issued by Hobson on 30 January 1840, following his arrival at the Bay of Islands as British Consul. On 6 February the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by some 50 Maori chiefs who yielded to the Crown the sole right to buy their lands – “the exclusive rights of pre-emption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf”. On 9 June 1841 Hobson terminated the New South Wales Land Claims Commission and took power to appoint a similar commission. Possibly to challenge the official actions, a new land syndicate had been formed in Australia by William Charles Wentworth and John Jones, and on 15 February 1840 these two men signed an agreement with five Maori chiefs who transferred the ownership of virtually the whole of the South Island and Stewart Island for a cash payment of £100, and a 50 annuity for the principal chief and lesser amounts for the others.

The total area of all alleged purchases cannot be accurately ascertained because the Land Claims Commissioner in his report of 1862 stated that “some claims were estimated in round numbers, by millions of acres or by degrees of latitude and longitude, or by the expression ‘as far as a cannon shot will reach’”. It seemed obvious that many of these claimants were speculators who gambled on receiving a Crown title to at least some of the land they claimed.

Settlement from 1840 to 1852

The land claims included one for 20 million acres lodged by the New Zealand Company. This organisation, a product of the colonising theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, was responsible for the founding of settlements at Wellington in 1840 and Nelson in 1841. Wakefield's influence had earlier led to the formation of an association to colonise New Zealand, but an attempt to gain legislative backing from the British Government in 1838 failed. The Association was then dissolved and some of its promoters formed the New Zealand Company which sought a charter from the British Government. The charter was not then forthcoming and the company, deciding to act on its own initiative, sent a preliminary expedition led by Colonel William Wakefield to purchase land as the site for the first settlement. Colonel Wakefield's party reached Wellington Harbour in September 1839 and negotiated successfully with a number of Maori chiefs for land on both sides of Cook Strait. Shortly afterwards the first body of immigrants left England and arrived at Wellington Harbour on 22 January 1840, a week before Hobson reached the Bay of Islands. Land in the Wellington settlement had been offered for sale in London on 1 June 1839 and sold rapidly.

A remarkable feature of this sale was that it took place before the company had bought the land. The result was that the settlers arrived to find the land unsurveyed and the Maoris disputing title to much of it. Investigations into the company's claim to have purchased 20 million acres in all continued for several years, and the purchase of only a small proportion of the area claimed was finally recognised. Meanwhile, the disputed land purchases led to fighting and threats of fighting at each of the company's settlements – Wellington and its satellite settlement at Wanganui, New Plymouth, and Nelson where the so-called Wairau massacre took place.

Early in 1841 the company received its royal charter allowing it to buy and sell land, and authorising a Crown grant of 4 acres for every £1 it spent on colonising.

In 1841 a subsidiary body, the Plymouth Company, founded a settlement at New Plymouth, and church settlements were established on Wakefield principles, with the assistance of the New Zealand Company, at Otago in 1848 by the Otago Association, an association of lay members of the Free Church of Scotland, and at Canterbury in 1850 by the Canterbury Association promoted by the members of the Church of England. Of the major settlements by 1850 only Auckland, which grew rapidly following its proclamation as the seat of Government, was not a planned Wakefield settlement.

Wakefield believed that progress in a new settlement largely depended on the controlled interplay of labour, land, and capital. This could be effected through the sale of land at a “sufficient price” instead of being granted free. The price should be high enough to force labourers to work for landowners for a number of years but not so high as to prevent the thrifty labourers from becoming landowners themselves. The sale of land was to provide revenue for Government and funds to finance the immigration of other labourers. Wakefield claimed that the disposal of land would result in a demand for labour to develop the land and at the same time would provide the funds to import the labour. It proved impossible to fix upon the “sufficient price”, and the high proportion of absentee owners in the early company settlements meant little demand for labour. But the value in Wakefield's theories lay in acceptance of the policy that land should be sold and the revenues used for public works and immigration, and that a policy of selective immigration should be followed.

The early phases of Government land administration were determined by royal instructions issued on 16 November 1840 and given effect to by the Governor, who remained in direct control of the administration of Crown land until 1849, when the first Commissioners of Crown Lands were appointed to assist. The royal instructions authorised the survey of the colony, the creation of reserves for public purposes, and the sale of land either to persons paying the purchase money to the Treasury in New Zealand or to the Government Agent of the colony in London. Relatively few sales took place before 1853 but the principle of selling land rather than making free grants was followed, and both Crown and New Zealand Company land was sold at a minimum price of £1 an acre. Pastoral licences were on an annual basis at the outset but were authorised for 14-year terms in 1851 at an annual fee of £1 for each 1,000 sheep depastured.

Investigations into purchases of land from the Maoris to determine their validity added to the uncertainty of the land title position and held up the progress of European farming. At the same time, limited funds available to Hobson meant that the Crown was unable to buy much land to resell to new settlers. With old and new settlers and the Maoris all dissatisfied with the situation, Hobson's successor, Governor Robert FitzRoy, on 26 March 1844 waived the Crown's right to pre-emption and authorised individuals to buy land from the Maoris, subject to the payment to the Crown of 10s. an acre, reduced in October 1844 to a penny an acre.

FitzRoy was recalled and replaced by Captain (later Sir) George Grey, who in 1845 restored the Crown's right of pre-emption to bring some control over the confused land situation in the North Island. The pattern of land purchase Grey introduced worked well, with the Government's Land Purchase Commissioners negotiating purchases at tribal meetings with large numbers of Maoris signing the deeds of sale – this was necessary because of the complicated nature of Maori land ownership. Under Grey the Crown bought large areas of land in the North Island and almost all of the South Island, and only in Taranaki and Auckland was insufficient land bought to meet the settlers' demands.

The Provincial Era, 1853–76

In 1852 the Constitution Act enabled the General Assembly of New Zealand to make laws regulating the sale, disposal, and occupation of Crown land and authorised the division of New Zealand into provinces. By 1853 the colonising associations had been wound up, and the European population of the colony was 27,600. Only 40,000 acres of land was fenced, 15,000 acres being under crop and 15,000 acres in grass. Land was being sold by the Crown at £1 an acre with higher prices in the Wakefield settlements – £3 an acre in Canterbury and £2 in Otago. Grey considered these prices too high to allow the small man to buy land and in 1853, before the first Parliament met, he issued regulations to reduce the price of rural land outside the Canterbury and Otago blocks to 10s. or 5s. an acre. The main effect of Grey's policy was not, however, to settle great numbers of poor men but to allow speculators and pastoralists to take up large areas particularly in the South Island, Hawke's Bay, and Wairarapa, where the major areas of available land existed. Those who could not afford to take up pastoral land and buy the sheep to stock it, turned to market gardening or dairying on small farms, in many cases engaging in casual work to increase their income. This was the main pattern of settlement in the early years of the provinces.

The General Assembly in 1854 authorised the Governor on the recommendation of the Superintendent and Council of any province to issue regulations to deal with Crown lands and, when the Waste Lands Act 1858 set out general conditions on which provinces could deal with Crown lands, control both of the land and of the revenue passed into the hands of the Provincial Councils. The need to obtain the Governor's approval to provincial regulations ensured that there was a degree of uniformity in the settlement policies of provinces but, within this framework, varied methods were followed. Auckland introduced the sale of rural land on credit, and Wellington adopted a similar method of sale on deferred payments. Auckland and Otago adopted a ballot system for dealing with two or more applications for the same land, but later followed the pattern of offering land by auction used in the other provinces.

Military settlements were a feature of some North Island provinces, concessions being granted to encourage retired military and naval officers to settle and strengthen the position of other settlers. Auckland made concessions to encourage general immigration, and authorised grants of land to school teachers. Provincial governments also contracted with individuals who, in turn, promoted settlement.

The growing stream of immigrants built up pressure around Governor Thomas Gore Browne. Much land was held by speculators who were asking prohibitive prices for it and the new settlers looked to the Crown for cheap land. This demand coincided with the rise of Maori nationalism, and increased resistance to the sale of land led to fighting in Taranaki which brought farming almost to a standstill in the mid-1850s. It spread to other areas and was still going on when Grey was recalled in 1861 for a second term as Governor.

In 1864, with the bulk of the fighting over, the Government confiscated 3 million acres of Maori land mainly in the Waikato, Taranaki, and Bay of Plenty. In the long run some was returned to the Maoris and some was purchased by the Crown, so that only about half of this area was actually confiscated. In 1862 the Crown's right to pre-emption of Maori land had been abolished and was not resumed until 1892. Thirty years of uncontrolled dealing, coupled with Crown purchases and the confiscation, made great inroads into Maori land. Maori Land Courts issued titles to the Maori owners who were then free to sell to the Government or settlers and, as a Royal Commission reported in 1891, the Maori owners “were surrounded by temptation. Eager for money wherewith to buy food, clothes, rum, they welcomed the paid agents who plied them always with cash and often with spirits”. The Commission commented that “such alienations were generally against the public interest, so far as regards settlement of the people upon the lands. In most of the leases and purchases effected the land was obtained in large areas by capitalists”.

The overall result of provincial legislation was that in 20 years to 1876, 8 million acres were sold for £76 million and another 2 million acres were disposed of under free grants mainly to those who had served in the military forces.

Early General Government Legislation, 1877–90

Early settlement fell into two classes – the large pastoral holdings and the small holdings on which the occupiers were no more than part-time farmers. Closer settlement was hindered primarily by poor transport, and this problem was tackled vigorously by the Central Government on the abolition of Provincial Government in 1876. The maze of provincial land legislation was replaced by the Land Act 1877, which repealed 56 existing land statutes and provided a uniform system of dealing with Crown land. Administration was vested in a Minister of Lands, a portfolio first established in 1858 but which had lapsed between 1864 and 1872. The provinces were replaced by land districts and a Land Board was appointed for each with a Commissioner of Crown Lands as chairman responsible to the Minister. These replaced the Commissioners and Waste Lands Boards of the provinces. The new Act provided for Crown land to be sold for cash or on deferred payments with conditions requiring improvements and personal residence. Special conditions applied to pastoral runs in Canterbury and Otago, leases being offered at auction and occupiers being given the right to freehold land around their homesteads.

The system followed in disposal of land was of free selection, and particularly in Canterbury and Otago a great deal of aggregation took place, despite the efforts of men such as Donald Reid and Sir John McKenzie. Pastoralists retained their holdings without great financial outlay by “grid ironing” the properties – purchasing the freehold of key areas, thus making the leased areas unattractive or inaccessible to others – and by “Dummyism” – the engagement of unemployed – to purchase land on their behalf and to fulfil residence requirements. Successive Ministers of Lands endeavoured to discourage the widespread land speculation and encourage closer settlement. William Rolleston in 1882 introduced legislation to stop the sale of Crown land and establish a 30-year perpetual lease with right of renewal, but the Legislative Council added a right to purchase. In 1885 John Ballance introduced the small grazing run lease under which much rough, broken bush country was settled. He also introduced a special settlement system under which associations of settlers cleared virgin country and balloted among themselves for specific areas. Another experiment was the village homestead special settlement system which coupled a perpetual lease of up to 50 acres with finance for improvements – £20 for a house and 2 10s. an acre to help clear, grass, and fence the first 20 acres of bush land.

Small farming still did not thrive, the economic situation and the importance of wool as the major export leaving the emphasis on the large property. The period of Central Government between 1876 and 1890 had perpetuated the sale of Crown land, and by 1892 most of the readily accessible land had been disposed of: 13·6 million acres was freehold and 14·2 million acres was leased from the Crown, of which 11·8 million acres was held on pastoral lease.

Liberal Land Policy for Closer Settlement, 1891–1911

The demand from the land hungry for the breaking up of the big estates was given impetus by the larger population, by increasing unemployment, and by refrigeration which made small farming an economic proposition through opening export markets for meat and dairy products. At the 1890 general election, the Liberal Party was elected with a policy which included promotion of closer settlement by disposal of Crown land only to genuine farmers, extension of State leasehold rather than freehold, repurchase of large estates for subdivision by the Crown, introduction of land tax to force subdivision, and cheap finance for development of new farms.

Inspiration of the programme of land reform was John (afterwards Sir John) McKenzie, Minister of Lands from 1891 to 1900. Initially McKenzie proposed to give settlers the option of taking land for cash, deferred payments, or on perpetual lease with periodic revaluations, but his Bill did not pass the House in 1891. In the following year he reintroduced it, substituting for deferred payments a 25-year lease with right to purchase. At the Committee stages, a compromise between the advocates of the freehold and those of the Liberal ideal of a State leasehold resulted in the replacement of the perpetual lease by a lease in perpetuity for 999 years with no right to freehold. This gave the State control over aggregation and initial residence and gave the lessee secure occupation at a low rent. Over 2 million acres were settled under this tenure before 1907 when the provision for it was repealed.

The Land Act 1892 placed restrictions on the acquisition of Crown land by those already holding sufficient land, and limited the area which any settler could obtain from the Crown. Small grazing run rents were fixed by valuation instead of auction, although the auctioning of pastoral runs was continued to the detriment of the high country in the South Island.

In 1894 blocks of rural land, mostly bush covered, were set aside for development, and groups of men with little or no capital were formed and employed on a cooperative basis putting in access roads. The sections were allotted subsequently among the men employed on the work and advances made for further development.

To break up the big estates, a graduated land tax was introduced and, in 1892, a Land for Settlements Act authorised the Government to buy private land for closer settlement. The first major purchase was made in 1893 under the Land and Income Assessment Act when the Government bought the 84,755-acre Cheviot Estate in North Canterbury. An improved Land for Settlements Act, passed in 1894, added compulsory purchasing power and authorised the use of loan money to buy land. Land was to be disposed of on lease in perpetuity or on small grazing run lease with rents fixed at 5 per cent of the capital value of the land which had to be sufficient to cover cost of acquisition, survey, roading, subdivision, areas absorbed by roads and reserves, and an allowance for administration. The next step towards successful closer settlement was the establishment in 1894 of the Advances to Settlers Office to provide farmers with cheaper and more extensive credit than was available from trading banks, stock and station agents, and private lenders. Coupled with State finance was the provision of expert advice to farmers by the setting up in 1892 of a separate Department of Agriculture.

Liberal land policy was a marked success. Extensive settlement took place in bush-covered country in the North Island where Crown land was surveyed and offered to settlers, sometimes before the sections were adequately roaded. While these men cleared the bush to establish new farms, Government land purchase broke the deadlock in closer settlement of established farming areas. Between 1892 and 1911 the Crown offered 8·5 million acres for settlement and this was settled in 33,000 holdings. Of this area, the Government had purchased 209 estates totalling 1·2 million acres for £6 million, and had subdivided it into 4,800 holdings. The compulsory purchase provisions were used in only 13 cases, prices for land purchased being assessed on a generous basis. Later, provision was made to lease following subdivision part of the properties purchased to occupiers of homesteads and estate employees. Land ballots were conducted in the locality of the subdivision and were generally followed a few days later by clearing sales on the property at which the new settlers bought stock and plant from the former owners.

A major undertaking in land settlement was begun in 1903 when the Government commenced the drainage, reclamation, and settlement of swamp land in the Hauraki Plains. This work was later extended to other swamp areas in North Auckland and the Bay of Plenty.

The lease in perpetuity was abolished by the Liberals in 1907 and tenants were given the right to purchase the land. In spite of the vocal demand for the freehold, a majority of the lessees preferred to retain the benefits of low rents, and of the 2 million acres leased on this tenure in 1907, 1·3 million acres were still held on lease in perpetuity in 1963. Provision was made for Crown land to be leased on renewable lease for 33- or 66-year terms with periodic revaluations. The final Liberal gesture to the principle of a State leasehold was the establishment by Sir Joseph Ward in 1907 of 7 million acres – later increased to 9 – as a National Endowment, within which land was to be disposed of on leasehold only.

Settlement Since 1912

By 1912 development in the North Island had made small farmers a numerous and important class. The extension of the freehold was a live issue during 1912 and when the Reform Party under W. F. Massey came into power the following year, this issue was resolved. Himself a small farmer, Massey extended the right to freehold Crown leases, made the terms on which leases in perpetuity could be purchased more favourable to the tenants, and in later years freeholding rights, with limitations, were extended to lessees of National Endowment lands. Following investigations in 1920 into deterioration of South Island high-country land held under short-term leases, the right to freehold was extended to these leases. In fact, few pastoral lessees exercised this right and the overall effect of the extension of freeholding rights was small.

The 1914–18 war marked the end of an era of general land settlement. From then until 1961, Government land settlement was designed primarily to place restricted classes of settlers on the land – the ex-servicemen of the two world wars and the unemployed of the depression which intervened. The Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act 1915 marked the adoption of a major scheme of settling returned soldiers on the land. Crown land as well as private land bought by the Crown was subdivided and loans were granted for development and for the purchase of existing properties. Nine thousand five hundred men were financed on to farms, 4,000 following subdivision of 1·4 million acres by the Crown and 5,500 by purchase of existing properties totalling 1·2 million acres. High post-war produce prices and the heavy demand for land forced prices up. The Crown paid £6 million for the 305 estates it purchased for soldier settlement and advanced another £9 million to finance men into existing farms. Substantial areas changed hands reaching a peak in 1921 when 4½ million acres was sold in 55,746 transactions for a consideration of £818 million. Once produce prices fell, the new settlers, many of them with little or no farming experience, found themselves in financial difficulties. Some abandoned their farms and more than 5,000 applied to have their properties revalued by a Revaluation Board set up in 1923. As a result £29 million was written off capital values of leases and mortgage principal.

Faced with growing unemployment caused by the onset of the severe depression of the early 1930s, the Government decided to embark on the development of remaining areas of vacant Crown land – most of it unattractive and too costly for private enterprise to develop – to prepare it for settlement. Legislation introduced in 1929 by the United Government set up a Lands Development Board to undertake this work, and a start was made on the pumice plateau in the centre of the North Island. The intention had been to make extensive use of machines, but increasing unemployment put the emphasis on the use of manpower to clear the land and land development became a part of a programme which included incentives and subsidies for farmers to provide work for the unemployed. A scheme to settle farmers on 10-acre sections was tried, but in the majority of cases it failed because the limited produce could not readily be sold, and casual work was seldom available to augment earnings from the farmlets.

The Small Farms Board established under legislation in 1932–33 was given the task of settling on small areas men registered as unemployed and others suitable for rural occupations whose settlement on the land would tend to reduce unemployment. Camps were established on blocks of unimproved or deteriorated Crown land manned by men from the cities who learned something of farming as the land came in out of the rough. As properties were developed, future occupiers were chosen from the ranks of the employees. Some of the men were placed as managers on reverted Crown properties and were promised permanent settlement if they proved their worth. By 1935, 1,305 men were employed on small farms scheme projects.

When the Labour Government came into power in 1935, it tackled the problem of overmortgaging of existing farms. State rural lending, transferred by the previous National Government from the State Advances Department to a Mortgage Corporation, was returned to complete Government control under the State Advances Corporation. Mortgage indebtedness on farm land had risen sharply because of high values from an estimated £48,000,000 in 1913 to £88,000,000 in 1920 and £130,000,000 in 1930. The depression left many farms heavily overmortgaged and legislation was enacted in 1936 to adjust liabilities secured on any property – farm or urban – to no more than the property's value: 15,621 farm applicants sought adjustments. Mortgage principal was reduced in 5,406 cases and rent under leases in 2,477 cases. Total remissions amounted to £85 million. Large-scale land development was continued but no more employees on development schemes were promised sections, and the tenure available to those who had been promised farms was changed from a 10-year lease with right of purchase to a 33-year renewable lease with no right of purchase.

Land development was being carried out by two boards – the Lands Development Board and the Small Farms Board – operating through a single department, the Department of Lands and Survey. By 1941, 388 families had been settled on 28,692 acres developed under the Small Farms Scheme, most of it in North and South Auckland and in Hawke's Bay. By 1941 the Lands Development Board had settled 113 farms comprising 17,358 acres, all in North and South Auckland. Another 214,560 acres were in various stages of development when the shortage of materials, particularly fertiliser, during the 1939–45 war brought development to a halt.

The Government's proposals for rehabilitation of ex-servicemen of the Second World War included settlement on the land. The existing boards were abolished in 1941 and replaced by a Land Settlement Board, and legislation was enacted giving ex-servicemen absolute preference for Crown land. Provision was made to finance ex-servicemen by rehabilitation loans at low rates of interest into State developed farms and farms purchased privately. To avoid a repetition of the inflation in land values which took place after the 1914–18 war, legislation was passed in 1943 to peg land prices at 1942 values and control all sales of land through the operation of a Land Sales Court and to give the Crown the power to take land at the price fixed by the Court. Control on sale prices of farm land remained until it was removed in 1950 by the National Government. However, ex-servicemen eligible for rehabilitation loan finance continued to be settled on Crown land on the basis of values ruling in 1942. By 1961, when only a few eligible ex-servicemen were still awaiting settlement, the rehabilitation scheme had settled 3,452 men on State developed farms and another 8,727 on farms purchased privately, loans for both purposes totalling £736 million. In that year the Government announced a policy of civilian settlement.

Present-day Land Policy and Development

In 1948 the land laws were amended and consolidated in a Land Act which repealed 78 other Acts or parts of Acts. The aim of the Act was to give the Crown lessee maximum rights consistent with the national interest, with the underlying principle that a secure tenure is the basis of farming progress. The new legislation reconstituted the Land Settlement Board and added private farmer members. The Board became the chief executive arm of the Department of Lands and Survey with power to delegate authority to officers of the Department and to Land Settlement Committees in each of the 12 land districts. Except for leases of high-country land in the South Island, the Act gave the right of freehold to those already leasing land on permanent leases. It established the 33-year renewable lease as the standard tenure for Crown leases, with farm land to be disposed of by ballot at fixed values under three options – renewable lease, deferred payments, or cash.

While the Land Act 1948 did not give the right of freehold to lessees of pastoral land in the South Island high country, it did give them a secure tenure. About 8 million acres of this land are leased from the Crown in 600 leases. Comprising as it does the bulk of the eastern watershed of the South Island, much of this land is susceptible to erosion and Government decided that it was essential in the national interest to retain control over the use made of it. As the existing tenancies expire, each is reviewed by the Land Settlement Board and is leased either on pastoral lease for 33 years, with right of renewal where the land can safely be alienated permanently, or on licence for any term up to 21 years, with no renewal rights. Rents on pastoral land are based on stock-carrying capacities and a clause in each lease limits the number of stock permitted to be carried.

As leases under former Land Acts expire, they are renewed under the Land Act 1948, and by 1964 out of a total of 15·4 million acres of Crown land held by 43,800 tenants, 11·2 million acres were held by 28,900 tenants under the Land Act 1948. The total revenue derived from Crown land held on lease or deferred payment licence amounted in 1964 to £2,510,000. Apart from 15,400 leases and licences over urban land – residential sections subdivided by the Government and made available mainly to private home builders – and 2,300 miscellaneous temporary tenancies of small areas of Crown land, the remaining 26,100 leases were all permanent leases over farm or pastoral land.

Since 1941 the Land Settlement Board has undertaken development for settlement on 2·7 million acres of land, and in 23 years 1·7 million acres have been disposed of in 4,100 farms. The 1 million acres on hand are expected to provide another 1,600 farms at the rate of about 75 farms a year. Of the 2·7 million acres on which development had been undertaken, 1·6 million acres had been bought by negotiation from private owners, 800,000 acres were unoccupied Crown land, and 300,000 acres land acquired compulsorily from private owners between 1944 and 1952.

The land developed by the Board was mostly either completely undeveloped or partly developed – much of it being scrub-covered country which, burnt off in earlier years, had reverted to scrub and second growth. A feature of land development has been the use of the contract system. Clearing, cultivation, sowing of grass seed and fertiliser from the ground and by air, fencing and erection of buildings, are all carried out on a contract basis. Once the land has been cleared and sown in grass, sheep and cattle are used to consolidate the new pastures. When the land is ready for intensive farming it is subdivided and additional buildings are erected, after which the farms are publicly advertised for disposal and are balloted for among landless applicants who have the necessary finance and farming ability. State finance is made available initially through the Department of Lands and Survey but once the settler is firmly established, administration of mortgages is handed over to the State Advances Corporation which remains the major State lending institution with £68 million advanced to 14,105 farmers on rural securities.

To provide special loan facilities for farmers on marginal or deteriorated land, a Government scheme of rural credit was introduced under the Marginal Lands Act 1950. This is designed to supply finance and advice to farmers wishing to carry out individual development schemes but who have insufficient security to enable them to borrow through normal lending institutions.

New Zealand's area is 66 million acres, of which 44 million acres are classed as occupied. The freehold has remained the dominant land tenure and about 22 million acres – one-third of the total area and half the occupied land – are held as freehold. Crown leaseholds account for 16 million acres, about half of which is leased on pastoral tenures. Maori land accounts for 4 million acres, 17 million acres are reserved for public purposes, most of it in indigenous State forests and in national parks, and the remaining 7 million acres are unoccupied Crown land, most of it barren mountain tops, lakes, and rivers. Almost all the Maori land is in the North Island and nearly all of the Crown land leased on pastoral tenures is in the South Island.

Government policy in New Zealand since the 1890s has been consistently aimed at closer settlement and the elimination of aggregation of farm land. As the remaining areas of unoccupied farm land suitable for development are limited and are under pressure from other types of land use such as exotic forestry and housing, closer settlement in the future will depend on the allocation made of remaining undeveloped land resources, the subdivision of large properties, and the development and use of new techniques to make more intensive farming of small areas possible.

by Percy Hylton Craig Lucas, Administrative Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

• History of Land Legislation and Settlement in New Zealand, Jourdain, W. R. (1925)
• New Zealand in the Making, Condliffe, J. B. (1959)
• The Colonisation of New Zealand, Marais, J. S. (1927)
• Crown Colony Government in New Zealand, McLintock, A. H. (1958)
• Run, Estate and Farm – A History of the Kakanui and Waiareka Valleys, North Otago, Scotter, W. H. (1948)
• Land of Promise – The Story of Waikakahi, Vance, W. (1957).