SMALL FARMS PLAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 85, 11 April 1933, Page 9

SMALL FARMS PLAN.

GRATIFYING EXPERIENCE.

OYER 700 FAMILIES PLACED.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Monday.

Commenting on the small farms plan, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates said that the results of the experience of past months had been most gratifying. Some 750 families had actually been placed on the land or were in course of taking up their sections. They had little or no capital, yet with scarcely an exception the reports showed they were doing well and were completely satisfied.

The experience certainly showed the possibility of settling families on more limited areas of land than the widelysupposed necessary minimum area of some hundreds of acres, said Mr. Coates. At the moment markets for most of the Dominion's products were in a depressed and unsettled state, but these discouraging conditions would not last. In spite of the talk of surpluses and socalled over-production, it was clear the people of the world stood in need of more products than could fee supplied.

In extending the small farm plan, particular attention was to be given to utilising the existing services and departments of the Government. The Lands Department would be directly responsible in the acquisition and disposal of the land. An offer of land might be made to the Lands Department, commissioners of Crown lands, and the department's fields officers, as well as to the Department of Agriculture, whoso officers would continue to be associated with the email farm plan. Applications by registered unemployed persons desirous of taking advantage of the small farm plan were to be addressed as hitherto to the officer in charge of the Labour Department or a certifying officer under the Unemployment Board.