LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 147, 23 June 1926, Page 11

LAND SETTLEMENT.

COMPtTLSORY PURCHASE. ————— A*MINISTERIAL PROMISE. ..(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Monday. "As Minister of Lands and with full authority.of the Government 1 say that the Government will not hesitate to put the-compulsory clauses of the Land Act into operation," announced the Hon. A. D. McLeod, in answer to some critical Opposition speeches in the House tonight. » He indicated, however, that it is not an immediate possibility, adding: '"I am not going into court with values jumping up and down as they have been doing, because we would get well salted in the decision which the courts could not fail to make." Mr. Parry: Have we reached a dead end? Hon. McLeod: There is a lot of settlement going on now, and taking it by and large it has been up to the average, though at present it is pretty dead. The fact is we cannot get men game enough to take up land under the present conditions of export values. The Minister stressed the importance of experience in making a success of land operations, declaring that he was satisfied through his knowledge of New Zealand's undeveloped lands that it would be criminal to bring men into the country and say "go on the land, and by hard, honest toil you can make more than ordinary wages." A man could earn more money easily in town in a 44-hour week. Mr. McCombs: People in this country all their lives cannot get land. Mr. McLeod retorted that he was well aware of it, but what would the critics say to a man, without experience, who ventured hie capital into a town business? Yet there was a feeling on Labour benches that they could put a man on land knowing nothing of it, and that by going "bull-headed" at it sixteen hours a day he would make money. There was plenty of land for settlement, and subdivision, when values got Hack to stability, which could only happen when export values became stable. "I quite agree with what the Minister of Lands said about people with English farming experience not making irond here, simply by reason of that." said Mr. Forbes, Nationalist Leader, referring to land settlement. Unless they have knowledge of local conditions they are likely to end disastrously here in Xew Zealand. There were a certain number in the Homeland who had capital enough to tide them over till they understood New Zealand conditions, but the number was limited, it would be better to put our own people on the land and croato vacancies in the towns. "It was good advice, to those proposing to come to New Zealand to settle on the land, that they should first study our conditions." Sir Joseph Ward's Reflections. Sir Joseph Ward declared his immense pleasure at what the Minister of Lands had said resardins commilsory purchase It would, he suggested, have amazed former Liberals had they heard such sentiments" coming from the Minister's side, because he* remembered when Liberals advocated compulsory purchase at fair prices they were denounced and looked upon aa political criminals. Mr. H. E. Holland: They called you Socialists.' Sir Joseph Ward: Yes, you will find embalmed in the records of "Hansard" denunciations of our proposals to pay full value on compulsory purchase, and giving the right of the purchaser to have a representative to fix values. And there was never a case in which we did not give the man more than his full value. I am proud and happy to be alive to .hear it coming from this source, which in days past so viciously denounced us—not the Hon. Minister himself, but the party he represents. They rose in anger, called us names. an>l now, in two short sentences, I hear it put right.