LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 218, 13 September 1924, Page 6

LAND SETTLEMENT.

— ■ m mm THE GROUP SYSTEM. (By Telegraph.-Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON"-, Friday. At the last, meeting of the executive of the New Zealand Farmers' Union it was decided to forward a remit to the Government urging that an adequate I scheme of immigration and land settlement shoulel be undertaken, so as to take full advantage of the Imperial Empire Settlement Act, 1922, and develop the wuste lands of the Dominion. I "As you are aware," states the Minister of Lands, the Hon. A. D. McLeod, ' in his reply to the union, "it is a difficult matter to settle on the land in a group system or community scheme of I settlement any large number of immi- | grants from abroad, and this can practically only be done when fertile and comparatively large areas near the centres of population are provided for the purpose. Such land has long been , alienated by the Crown in New Zealand, and the lands now available for disposal comprise mostly pastoral areas ol rugged country remote from railways and towns and also worked out kauri gum areas, pumice lands and others that require a certain amount of special local experience in working to enable them to be utilised to °ood advantage in conjunction with a C fair amount of working capital. It must therefore, be recognised that it is a very difficult matter to place farmers, ' from England upon lands in New 1 Zealand which possess different char- ' aeteristics and would reeiuire to be ( utilised in a different manner to the lands of Britain. A co-operative scheme of settlement such as has been suggested is out of the question under existing conditions." i