LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 258, 30 October 1926, Page 8

LAND SETTLEMENT.

There are one or two points that call for immediate attention in the vigorous defence by the Minister of Lands that we published on Thursday. One is his reference to the opening up of tho (Jrewera country. Mr. McLeod says that "a perusal of files shows the part the Auckland daily newspapers played in endeavouring to force the purchase on the ground that it was the finest area in New Zealand for settlement purposes. It would also show how my immediate predecessor was pilloried because ot valuable time lost in dealing with the matter." So far as the "Star" is concerned, anything that we may have said in favour of opening up the Urewera block was very strongly offset by vigorous protests against deforestation in that area. Again and again we protested that most of the country was unfit for settlement, and that the first consideration was preservation of the forest, and we have congratulated the Government on what it has done to preserve that forest.

The Minister passed on from stressing the difficulties of settling virgin land to some interesting remarks on the state of occupied areas. He is, he says, more concerned about the condition of occupied than of unoccupied land. Increase in Ul3 cost of working, he declares, is forcing land out of use; it is becoming increasingly difficult to work larger holdings; and scores of good farmers have told him that if they could get rid of some of their land they could "see daylight." This is a state of affairs to which we have frequently drawn attention. Many holdings are too large, and it is an encouraging sign that farmers in increasing numbers are realising this. The process of readjustment will be slow and painful, for the country is suffering from the results of inflation —for which the Government is largely responsible— and until there is a greater degree of stabilisation there will not be free buying of rural lands. Is the Government, however, doing everything possible to encourage this stabilisation and to reduce the farmer's costs? Is not its freeholding of leases likely to stimulate the speculation that has already done so much harm? And has not the general tendency of legislation since the war been to buttress high prices of commodities, a policy especially hard on the man on the land, whose prosperity is entirely dependent on a market at the other side of the world?

These are questions which, among others, might be considered by the conference which is to be held in Auckland during Royal Show Week. That the Auckland Agricultural Association should consider it necessary to issue invitations for a conference on all phases of the land question (for we take it that this is what the idea amounts to) is an indication of the seriousness of the national position and the poverty of the Government's policy. The Royal Show draws prominent farmers and other leading men from all parts of the Dominion, and the Association should be able to get together a representative conference. We hope it will be thoroughly representative, and that it will find time to probe deeply and extensively into what really is a national sickness. It may be able to supply the Government with a policy.