No Freehold On Lord

Howe Island

SPEAKING in the NSW State Assembly at the beginning of the month, Mr.

Sheehan, Minister for Lands, said that he had refused requests for the purchase of freehold property on Lord Howe Island (a NSW dependency, off the Australian coast.) Such sales, he said, would never be permitted. Land on the island was Crown property; and there always was a possibility of the island be ing seized, some time, for use as an enemy base for operations against Aus tralia’s chief port.

Sympathetic consideration would be given, he stated, to the Lord Howe Islanders’ plea for a review of the “per missive occupancy” tenure under which land on the island is now held.