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reehold as such, and if, for some
reason, there must be taxation of free-10ld
 and ‘not leasehold land, the obections
 which we feel to the present
system might in great measure be removed
 by granting very long leases,
ay, 9%-year leases, at fixed rents,
vith no reappraisement and consejuent
 liability to increase of rent
luring the 99 years, and with full
compensation for unexhausted imsrovements
 at the end. But this
omes very near to freehold, which we
are inclined to think is really the
sounder system.
10. Turning to the question of the
size of the area which one person (inluding
 in that term a partnership
>r company) should be allowed to hold,
we found that the mind of the Governnent
 and, indeed, the minds of many
men who, having regard to their personal
 interests, might be expected to
take the opposite view, are fixed on the
dea of getting as many people as possible
 directly on to the land, and not
on the idea of making the maximum
possible economic use of the land, that
is to say, of getting the maximum of
wealth production from it Conse
quently, when the leases of large areas
‘all in, the Government asks itself
what ig a living area, i.e., what is the
minimum area on which a man ought
:0 be able to make a decent living.
The land is then subdivided accord-‘ngly.
 In past years it was unloubtedly
 subdivided into too small
areas, and people overcame the diffity
 to some extent at least by
‘ dummying * and aggregation. Tor
:xample, a man would take one area
n his own name, ‘another in his
wife’s, another in his brother’s, and
30 on. Things are hetter now, and the
“living area’ thas now come to be
about 20,000 to 60,000 acres, according
to the locality, i.e., an area carrying,
say, 6,000 sheep (there are many who
think that it should he increased to
an area carrying, say, 10,000 sheep),
but the idea of the ‘living area ”’
and of the maximum number of people
who can be got directly on to the land
governs it all. There may be insuperable
 political difficulties in the way of
much larger areas, but there is a considerable
 body of opinion that such

ireas properly handled by persons of
wdequate capital mean a higher class
f sheep and more wealth production,
soth in point of quantity of wool per
were and of quality of wool, than could
re got from the same area split up
nto a number of ‘living areas.”
Large areas are more econcmical in
he matter of overhead expenses,
yuildings, shearing sheds, machinery
ind the like, than a number of small
es.
11. Inasmuch as Australia so largely
lepends upon wool production it seems
>bvious that the most economical use
of the land suitable for it would be
hat best calculated to promote the
vealth, prosperity and population of
\ustralia generally, though the in-Tease
 of population might not be
ound on the wool-growing land itself.
Phere is a general reluctance to admit
‘his proposition, though there is a
general admission of the premise on
vhich the argument rests; an instance,
serhaps, of a tendency to take short
wd not long views in economic
natters. Yet we had indications of
he drawbacks of the comparatively
mall area, called the ‘living area,”
efore our eyes, as, for instance, when
ve passed from a big station where the
ywner had little temptation to overstock
 through the land of a
¢ selector ’ on a ‘living area.” The
ormer had ample winter pasture; the
atter was almost grazed bare. The
emptation to increase a small profit
vy over-stocking had been too strong;
here was no reserve of grass, and even
short drought would be sure to land
he selector in serious difficulties. We
eard in many quarters of a dangerous
endency towards deterioration in the
juality of wool owing to the ¢ small
nen’ not being able to obtain first-Jass
 stud stock as the ‘big men ”’
wre, and having to be content with
vaying the rejected stock of their
arger neighbours.
12. It is, of course, impossible for us
0 suggest what the size or the
wverage size of a holding ought to be,
ut it does seem to us that it ought
to be such that, with proper capital,
the maximum economic use from the
s0int of view of wealth production can
ne made of it: and that it is on this