tenure for themselves, and to be leaseholders or freeholders as they please.  Then there have arisen, too, important questions affecting the perpetual lease itself.  Should the perpetual leaseholders retain the right of converting at any time their leasehold into a freehold by paying down the cash value of their farm, or should the State always retain the fee simple?  Next, if the State should retain this, ought there to be periodical revisions of the rent, so as to reserve the unearned increment for the public?  Fierce have been the debates and curious the compromises arrived at concerning these debatable points.  The broad result has been that the sale of the freehold of Crown lands, though not entirely prohibited, has been much discouraged, and that the usual tenure given now is a lease for 999 years at a rent of four per cent. on the prairie value of the land at the time of leasing.  As this tenure virtually hands over the unearned increment to the lessee, it is regarded by the advanced land reformers with mixed feelings.  From their point of view, however, it has the advantage of enabling men with small capital to take up land without expending their money in a cash purchase.  Inasmuch, too, as transfers of a lease can only be made with the assent of the State Land Board for the district—­which assent will only be given in case the transfer is to a bona fide occupier not already a landowner—­land monopoly is checked and occupancy for use assured.  Meanwhile there is plenty of genuine settlement; every year sees many hundred fresh homes made and tracts reclaimed from the wilderness.

[Illustration:  PICTON—­QUEEN CHARLOTTE’S SOUND

Photo by HENRY WRIGHT.]

Quite as keen has been the fighting over the principle of State repurchase of private lands with or without the owner’s consent.  It was a favourite project of Sir George Grey’s; but it did not become law until he had left public life, when it was carried by the most successful and determined of the Liberal Ministers of Lands, John McKenzie, who has administered it in a way which bids fair to leave an enduring mark on the face of the Colony.  Under this law L700,000 has been spent in buying-forty-nine estates, or portions of estates, for close settlement.  The area bought is 187,000 acres.  A few of these have, at the time of writing, not yet been thrown open for settlement; on the rest 2,252 human beings are already living.  They pay a rent equal to 5.2 per cent. on the cost of the land to the Government.  Even taking into account interest on the purchase money of land not yet taken up, a margin remains in favour of the Treasury.  Nearly 700 new houses and L100,000 worth of improvements testify to the genuine nature of the occupation.  As a rule there is no difficulty in buying by friendly arrangement between Government and proprietor.  The latter is commonly as ready to sell as the former to buy.  The price is usually settled by bargaining of longer or shorter