NO ROOM

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 210, 4 September 1919, Page 4

NO ROOM

t But the settlement of returned soldiers is only one part of the problem of getting more people on the land of this country. What about the other men-youths-coming to manhood, farm and station workers —who want to take up land? What about the immigrant?) As we have pointed out before, most of the soldiers who are keen to take iip farming arc men who, if there had been: no. war, would have settled or remained on the land. The land policy of any. New Zealand Government will be tested! by its ability to .provide for all three classes, the returned soldier, the civilian land eeeker, and the immigrant. But for the .present at anyrate, the last two classes seem to be neglected. This enormous borrowing is to place only the soldier on the land. Are we to believe that in a rich and sparsely populated country like this only the one class although it is the most deserving—can be satisfied at one time? Surely such a conclusion would be a condemnation of any Government. Yet in the discussion yesterday there seems to 'have been no mention either of the land-seeker who has not "been to the war, or of the immigrant. Immigration is urgently needed to increase our population and ■production, yet the policy of the Government seems not to have shifted an inch from that miserable attitude of dis-

couragement taken up some months ago. The review of settlement prospects that we published yesterday shows that the immigrant has nothing to hope for from the Government. It is "God's Own Country," but apparently its wealth and opportunities are to be reserved for a population not much greater than that ■ol Glasgow.