LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 103, 4 May 1931, Page 3

LAND SETTLEMENT.

DIVORCE FROM POLITICS. SUGGESTED CONTROL BOARD. STATEMENT BY MR. HOLDSWORTH. An effort is to be made by the Auckland Land Settlement League to have the question of land settlement divorced from party politics and transferred to a 'board of control.

This intention was mentioned this morning by the chairman, Mr. W. J. Holdsworth, who intimated . that a special meeting of the league would be held next Friday to discuss the preparation of a questionnaire on the subject for submission to members of Parliament. The time had arrived, said Mr. Holdsworth, for the league to get something definite done. "We still think that land settlement is the most important. problem the Dominion has to face, and we fear that with party squabbling undeT the present constitution of Parliament it will be, overlooked. We consider that a definite and comprehensive scheme should be embarked upon, for the future prosperity of the Dominion depends upon primary production. At the same time, a vigorous land settlement scheme would absorb the surplus labour of the country, and prove reproductive. The huge sum of money being spent on •unemployment relief is not productive, and ie only a palliative. "There is a keen demand for small farms in New Zealand to-day, 'but the difficulty is capital. If, therefore, the money that is being spent on relief were devoted io the 'bringing into cultivation of large areas of Crown and idle lands it would give many people an opportunity of going on the land and of at least earning their own livings. It is rather striking that although the depression is world wide the countries that are feeling the pinch least are those which have given proper attention to closer settlement and intensive cultivation. Experts claim that New Zealand, from the climatic standpoint, is ideal for that purpose." As an illustration of what can be achieved by proper attention to land settlement," Mr. Holdsworth referred to the fact that Sir James Parr, in a recent address, had mentioned that a million Greeks, who were driven out of Turkey and were practically a starving multitude, had been established on the land in Macedonia by a committee of the League of Nations, and to-day were happy and contented. If land settlement on a great scale like that could be accomplished why could it not be carried out on'a smaller scale in New Zealand? What New ZeZaland had not the courage to do had been achieved by quite \ number of countries with outstanding success.