TOKAANU LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 19

TOKAANU LAND.

FOR CLOSER SETTLEMENT. DIFFICULTIES REVIEWED. (From Onr Own Correspondent.} TE AWAMUTU. Friday. The Hons. A. D. MrLeod (Minister of Lands) and O. J Hawken (Minister of Agriculture) received a number of denutnfions advocating the cutting up of the Tokaanu Mental Hospital Estate to enable closer settlement, in preference to transferring of portion to the Justice Department. The main reason advanced for this course was that the land was nonratable, and was a heavy burden on settlers in the riding concerned. Hon O. J. Hawken said he saw many difficulties connected with land settlement that came under his purview. Cheap money had induced many people to take up land and probably some were nnsuited to attain success on the land, but real genuine triers ■would be able to profit by the advice and assistance of his Department. Of late years many farmers had not done as well as they should. He hoped times would change, and that an end to the downward tendency had been reached. Sheep and beef farmers had experienced hard times. Dairymen were also now having a bad run. He thought present prices were down to bedrock, and that brighter prospects would obtain for the future. Hon. A. D. McLeod said the difficulty was that, if his Department took over the land, he would have to pay fair market value to the Mental or Prisons Department. It might cost his Department £9 per acre. Would he be- able to sell it again in small blocks without loss? Another point for consideration was: What should be done with the prisoners? It had cost the country (including the farmers) many hundred thousand pounds to maintain prisons, and, to make that Department pay, good land must be utilised. He would promise to see the land himself with Mr. Hawken, and then probably negotiate with the Justice Department. It would be costly to remove the Waikeria institution holus bolus, whereas the adjoining land added to Waikeria would provide adequate land for ten or twelve years, when it could be disposed of as unimproved land for closer settlement.