GREAT LAND SCHEME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 29, 3 February 1934, Page 9

GREAT LAND SCHEME.

Largest Migration of Modern Times Planned in U.S.

GOOD LAND FOR BAD

WASHINGTON, February 2,

A bill to. permit of tlic carrying out of a land policy which contemplates the permanent removal of millions of acres from cultivation has been prepared by the Farm Administration.

The measure is to be presented to President Roosevelt within a few days and, if he approves, as ollicials expect he will, the proposed legislation will set in motion a plan which ultimately will result in one of the greatest migrations of modern times. Acquisitions of land are to be made by purchase, or by some other arrangement satisfactory to persons now living on sub-marginal tracts. This might include the exchange for more fertile tracts of homestead sites near factories in unproduc tive areas.

Estimates of the sub-marginal land which might be retired vary, conservative figures being from 124,000,000 to 140,000,000 acres, though not all this is in actual cultivation.

Mr. H. Hopkins, Federal director of relief, has estimated that 1,000,000 families might have to be moved. Both city workers and farmers could be transferred from city and country slums to- a combination of a rural and an urban atmosphere. That is hoped for through a decentralisation of industry.