DRIVEN OFF LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 4, 6 January 1938, Page 3

DRIVEN OFF LAND.

WAR OFFICE PURCHASE ALARM OF ENGLISH FARMERS. TROOPS BEFORE GROWING CROPS. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON. December IS. The news that the British War Office is buying lti.ooo acres of land in East Kent for a vast new Army training area has caused consternation among farmers and farm workers in the neighbourhood. Farms will be sold up. Implements and machinery worth thousands of pounds will be good only for scrap metal, and high-class residential property is likely to be depreciate seriously in value. No purchases have yet been made, but it is understood that negotiations with landowners are well advanced, under the threat of compulsory purchase. '"If this, purchase is made it will hit the whole countryside,'' said Mr. R. W. Bailey, secretary of the local Swingfield branch of the National Farmers' Union, this week. ''Most of the farmers round my neight>ourhood have a certain amount of arable land, some of them as much as 100 acres, under crop." He estimated that on an average farm of 100-200 acres, with 50 acres of arable land. where four men are now employed, only one would be needed when the farm was given over to pasture. One horse would be needed instead of six. Half the farmers have bought their holdings since the war. Now they are faced with the prospect of becoming tenants again, with extremely low condensation for improvements. Ten ponds an acre has been offered by the Government for land considered locally to be worth at least double that price. All development is at a standstill, as farmers and landowners are marking time. Mr. W. H. Gammon runs two, and sometimes three, threshing "tackles," giving employment to 12 men per tackle, from the beginning of the autumn until late spring. The end of arable farming will destroy nine-tenths of his business. He will be left with plant worth £1000 to £1500 on his hands, and nowhere to go. No horses—or virtually no horses— and no ploughshares to sharpen will put blacksmiths out of business. Part of the area near Dover is to be converted into underground aerodromes, with landing grounds on the surface and bomb-proof hangars burrowed out of the hillside. MEMBER THANKED. LUNCHEON TO MR. COATES. (By TelegTaph.—Own Correspondent.) DARGAYILLE, this day. A complimentary luncheon was given to the Right Hon. J. G. Coatee, M.P. for Kaipara, and Mrs. Coates at Maropiu yesterday afternoon at the farm of the county chairman, Mr. V. Trounson. 1 hanks were expressed to the member for his services over 27 years bv Messrs. Trounson, L'. Stewart and J. E.Mudford. Mr. Coates, replying at length, thanked the electors for- the opportunities given to him as their member. A representative committee was set up to forward his candidature at the next general election. The first account we have of an armoured ship is in 15J0. It was one of the fleet of the Knights of St. John, entirely sheathed with lead, and it is said to have successfully resisted all the shot of that day. At the siege of Gibraltar, in 1782, the French and Spaniards employed light iron bombproofing over their decks.