3

JB. E. H. TRIPP.]

L—sc.

He got them out with snow-ploughs, engaging men at a high rate of pay, and then got them away by train. This man saved seven thousand out of nine thousand. Well, that man deserves the extension just as much as a man who has lost a large number of sheep through practically doing nothing. 21. Do you mean that the present holders of leases should, from your point of view, have the term of their leases extended? —Yes; extended fourteen years. 22. Without the leases being put up to further application in any way? —Without being put up to auction —under Class 1., I think. 23. Are you content that at the expiration of that increased term the leases should be put up to auction in the usual way, or do you ask for any right of renewal? —We hope by that time there may be some improvement as to renewal and that kind of thing. 24. I mean renewal at valuation, of course? —Yes, at a revaluation. It is a difficult point just now when dealing with the losses occasioned by the snow. I think people ought to have it made up to them just for their losses by the snow. 25. You do not think they should get any more than that now? —No. 26. Mr. Bennet.] There is a matter in connection with this subject that we should not lose sight of altogether. Some of these leased areas are where the railway is to be made, and there is an agitation for land there. If the leases were extended I suppose the pastoral tenants would meet the demand for settlement in some way ? —Yes. In our part of the country the experience of cutting up is that the high country is being left on the Government's hands. There is a run there —the Blue Cliffs Hun —for which they cannot get a bid. It used to belong to Mr. Rhodes, and is near Timaru. 27. Mr. Lawry.] What is the currency of your present lease? —Mine has six years to run from next March. As things are now, I do not care to expend money in improving the land. The lease was originally for fourteen years. 28. Including the balance of your term, you want twenty years? —Yes; that would give encouragement to improve the land. 29. Can that be accepted-as the general wish of all who signed the petition? —I could not say it is the wish of all who signed the petition, but I know that the Canterbury men with whom I have talked about the matter, speaking broadly, would be satisfied with an extension. 30. Hon. Sir W. J. Steward.] Do you know anything about the pastoral leases in the neighbourhood of Burkes Pass? —In a general kind of way —I do not know them in detail at all. Patkick. Pattullo, Inspector of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, examined. (No. 2.) 31. Hon. Sir W. J. Steward.] Will you make your statement now, please? You have heard what has been stated by Mr. Tripp. You might perhaps give some definite information as to the losses sustained on the runs that your clients are connected with? —I can give some information as to the losses on our own properties, which would more or less be similar in degree and comparison to the losses sustained by others. 32. I mean, could you give us some information as to what the total loss on a run with so-many thousand sheep proved to be, and therefore the percentage of sheep lost? — On the Hakataramea and Kawarau Runs, which are owned by my company, the total number of sheep lost was 32,692. After deducting the losses sustained on freehold lands and the ordinary deathrate, the losses on the Government runs were 15,600. 33. What percentage was that of the number of the flock? —The total number on the Government runs was 52,000. Out of 52,000, 15,600 were lost. I have not worked out the percentage. 34. It would be about 30 per cent., roughly? -Yes. I might give you an idea of the loss that that meant. I value these 15,600 sheep at 15s. each. I arrive at this value because I had to pay an average of 15s. for sheep of a worse character to replace those lost. 35. Yours is not the highest percentage of loss, I think, according to the petition ; it went up to 57 per cent, in some cases, I think? —My company had on two Government runs a loss of 50 per cent., and on another 17 per cent. The average comes to, as I have shown, about 30 per cent. Then, I estimate we lost wool at the rate of ss. a head. That is the average amount for the sheep on the properties for the last three years. From that, however, I deduct 2s. a head for what we recovered in dead wool, leaving a loss, at 3s. a head, of £2,340. I estimate the loss on the surviving sheep —36,400 —at Is. a head, for depreciation of wool-clip. That brings the total loss on the 15,600 sheep to £15,860. lam of opinion that my company would have been in a better position if they had lost this £15,860 otherwise than in the loss of sheep, for this reason: that we have had to buy fresh sheep, which will not do as well in the country for some time, and there will be a loss of revenue for the next two or three years from understocking and the fact of the sheep being strange to the country. That is how I arrive at the loss. 36. What relation does this loss bear to the rent you pay for the runs in question--how many years' rent would it represent? —The annual rent of the lands affected is £2,440. 37. It would therefore represent something like six years' rent? —Of the lands affected. We pay more rental than that to the Government; but that is the rental of the lands affected. That is all the statement of loss that I can give you. 38. Then, as to the remedy: do you concur with Mr. Tripp?—l generally concur with Mr. Tripp that an extension of lease would be the fairest and most equitable way in which to give compensation. It would have this advantage: that any runholder having security for a number of -years would naturally for his own sake endeavour to improve that country. " With fourteen years or more to run he would surface-sow land, and this would not only do himself good, but the ground would be left in a better state at the end of his lease. The Government runs in the country, broadly speaking, are losing in carrying-capacity. I think that the Hon. the Minister of Lands