LAND SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 116, 18 May 1932, Page 6

LAND SETTLEMENT.

The ten-acre scheme is just bo much soft soap, and no one knows better than Messrs. Ctoates and Forbes that it will not work. How much land did the Government purchase under the closer-settlement scheme, which was much more practical? As land settlement is the solution of our troubles, it is my opinion that all unoccupied Crown land should be immediately thrown open for iree selection under the flreelwld tenure. All unimproved private, or native land should be confiscated at unimproved valuation. An immediate advance should be made for buildings, which need not be elaborate. I and my people lived for ten years in a three-roomed lean-to that ijas "built with a neighbour's assistance. The settler would need to be paid a small wage until such time ae his farm became profitable. Such advances, if not wiped out altogether, could be secured as a first mortgage, presuming we settle 1000 people at a cost of £500 o<K>. and believing, as we are told, that every -man on the land means three men employed in the cities, we dispose of 4000 unemployed persons at a cost <™* * \«i], ° f £500,000. LAND SCHEMJiK