A PAINFUL RE-ADJUSTMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 182, 1 August 1923, Page 4

A PAINFUL RE-ADJUSTMENT.

The Government deserves some credit for having faced with 'honesty and courage the problems involved in the depreciation of values in soldier settlement. These troubles were largely of the Government's own making. They bought for soldiers large areas of improved land at peak prices during the boom, thereby laying up certain trouble for themselves when prices of produce receded, and helping to inflate values throughout the Dominion. They were warned over and over again, by the Press and their own officials, of the risks they were taking, but they paid no heed. Had they done what they propose to do now, seek the advice of farmers in the various districts, they would not have made so many mistakes. Then came the fall in prices, and -the values of land slumped. Soldier gettlere were granted postponements of payment, but the trouble lay deeper than that; it was a question of revaluation of properties. The Government, in the Bill presented yesterday, proposes a general revaluation. The State will cut its losses. Local committees are to revalue the farms, and to be responsible to a central board. Arrears of rent or interest may be suspended for a period up to ten years, and reductions in vent shall be retrospective. Provision is also made for the reduction of mortgages and the supply of fresh capital. The reduction of mortgages will probably be the most difficult part of the Act to operate. The Bill rightly provides that where there are two mortgages, the first to the Crown and the second to a private lender, the second shall be discharged before the first is reduced, but the Crown is empowered to negotiate with the second mortgagee for the purchase of his mortgage. This will involve much negotiation, but similar negotiation, for the reduction of private mortgages, has been going on for some time. The process oi readjustment has to be gone through in respect to soldier settlements, as well as in other spheres, and the sooner it is honestly grappled with the better. Mr. Massey says it will cost the country two millions. This, of course, is little more than a guesn. We shall not get the final returns of this penalty of over-optimism and rashness until several years hav<; elapsed. The situation to-day as regards soldier settlement shows improvement in one important respect. The few years of experience have weeded out most of the men who, by reason of health or capacity, were unfit for the country life, and most of the settlers who have stuck to their holdings should be able, with the help that this Bill promises, to carry on.