LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 211, 7 September 1927, Page 11

LAND SETTLEMENT.

AT A STANDSTILL

REFORM'S BAD BLUNDERS.

NATIONALIST LEADER'S

CRITICISM.

(By Telegraph. — Parliamentary Reporter.)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday. "If there ia one Department that could be termed a bankrupt Department it is the Lands for Settlement," declared Mr. G. W. Forbes, Leader of the Nationalist Party, in the House of Representatives. "It is difficult for an onlooker to say that thie Department had come to anything, but a standstill, and if it is not at a standstill then the progress that has been made is so slight that it is scarcely perceptible." Mr. Forbes instanced the case of the settlers at Ngaroma. There was a case where men had been placed on land that had proved absolutely unsuitable and unfit for settlement. There were others, too, but what was being done for them? The years of wasted effort and the disappointed hopes of these people could never be adequately compensated for, but something could be done to reimburse those who had lost their all. Government's Bad Buying. The Minister's experience in buying land under the voluntary system had evidently not been a happy one, continued Mr. Forbes. It was not the Government's policy to buy land below valuation. Judging from the past the policy was to buy it much above valuation. What had happened under the Returned Soldiers' Settlement scheme wae well known. Such extraordinary purchases were made at that time that anyone with knowledge of the hind was ■imply staggered. Only recently five abandoned farms in Canterbury had been put up for auction. There was not a single bid. There had not been one word in the Budget this year concerning land settle' ment. The present Government had come to such a pass that it could not think of one satisfactory transaction which it could include in the Budget. The Government well knew this to be an important matter, for it had put the promise concerning compulsory clauses in the "shop window" at election time. Any Government which endeavoured to sit on the Treasury benches 'while it neglected land settlement was not going to occupy its position for very long. In fairness to those who had voted for Reform on the strength of its promises, the Minister should declare his policy. A Policy of Drift. There is something wrong, , ' declared Mr. W. S. Glenn, Reform member for Eangitikei. "This continual drift-drift-drift is no good. It is no use sidestepping. Let's get. somewhere with it. We've got some farmers in the Cabinet— I see a cluster of four over there. Surely they ought to be able to give us a practical lead." The Hon. D. Buddo predicted that unemployment must continue to be a problem unless land settlement' was' pushed. Aggregation was going on because it seemed almost a privilege for a wealthy man to buy out bis neighbour wbo was in financial difficulties. The Minister in Reply. The Minister of Lands suggested that the discussion called for very little reply. Critics bad attempted to fasten blame on the present Government instead of going further back and examining the legacies which the Government inherited. The .bulk of the Te Kuiti; land which had been abandoned was first settled twenty yean ago, but had the present knowledge been then available he was sure that over a million ; acres of that clase of land would not have been settled, nor would hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on roads which now produced no return. He agreed that in many cases if a more complete study had been given to the subject of subdivision in times gone by there would have been gr&ter success. Hundreds of thousands of acres of high country in the South Island bad been left without winter areas. If it was the policy of the Government to abandon ugh country rune to noxious weeds and rabbits, well and good, but he would definitely declare that many of those large areas would never be successfully worked unless a sufficient area of warmer country in lowlands was made available. The remainder of Mr. McLeod'e speech is published in another column.