BACK TO THE LAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 39, 25 November 1937, Page 8

BACK TO THE LAND.

SCHEME FOR UNEMPLOYED. ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH MOVEMENTS. The “Land Settlement Scheme” initiated in Eiigland and run by the Land Settlement Association (Ltd.), hag the sympathy of and part financial support from, the Government. This “back to the land” movement is now progressing rapidly, and is attracting a good deal of public attention, especially in the districts affected. A similar movement has recently been begun in Scotland, where Castle Semple, Benfrewshire, with 1100 acres of land has been purchased for £II,OOO by the Scottish Department of Agriculture. The scheme is unique, for the men whom it is intended to assist are drawn from sources strictly limited—the ranks of the unemployed in the worst-off of our great industrial centres. It is a commendable attempt to inure once again to work men who from disuse of hand and brain have lost the working habit and have grown into acceptance of the “dole” as their regular means of subsistence. It is, in fact, an effort to save the souls of men deteriorating mentally and physically through no fault of their own. For that reason alone most thinking people will wish it success. The men—all of them married—are carefully selected, the threefold qualification for acceptance being residence in a special area, a willingness to work on a co-operative basis (for purchases and sales) and physical fitness. Over them are placed officials even more carefully selected—men with the highest possible technical qualifications and —an important factor—with a knowledge of handling them. Tho suitability of each candidate for a holding is tested from time to time during the fifteen months he spends in intensive training—in chicken-rearing, pig-breeding, ploughing, harrowing, packing, etc. Not till the end of that time is a man deemed competent to take charge of a holding under the close and careful supervision of an expert warden attached to each colony of settlements. Though the work is hard and quite, new to tho men, it is a. remarkable fact that last yea'r only 24 men—a mere 3 per cent —retired after six months’ training, one main cause of these regrettable lapses being the health of the men or thier wives. This is important, for the cost of training is expensive, each holding entailing a capital expenditure of £IOOO, £7OO of which has to be spent on .buildings and £3OO on the settler himself against which, of course, must be balanced the amount that would have been expended upon him through the “dole.” The eventual aim is to make each man primarily. responsible for the profits and losses on his greenhouse, piggery, outdoor crops, etc, and thereby to restore to him an independence to which he has for a long time been a stranger.