FARMERS' REQUEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 165, 15 July 1938, Page 5

FARMERS' REQUEST.

LAND TITLES QUESTION.

REWARDING COMPETENCE. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. Urgent necessity for an adequate land policy for Is'ew Zealand was stressed by ■speakers at the Farmers' Union conference to-day, and a remit was carried to thu effect that the union should press for a definite polk-y by which farmers' sons, sharemilkere and farm labourers, after certification for competence, could be assisted to acquire farms of their own. Mr. D. G. Gordon, speaking to the remit which gave rise to the motion as carried, said Xew Zealand had a Minister of Lands who had definitely said he would not give , titles, and it seemed useler** to look to the Government for assistance in land settlement. There were men who were in a position to take up land, but who could not get it and were drifting into the ranks of labour and being lost to the farms. The only solution lay in the subdivision of private land in an attractive way.

Captain H. M. Ruehworth, M.P., eaid that in fairness 'to the Minister he would suggest that Mr. Lang>stone was misrepresented on the queetion of titles. A .total of 1740 titles had been issued since he came, into office.

A Delegate: Freehold? Captain Ruehworth: Freehold and leasehold.

He added that the Minister, had been referring to email farms on which many thousands Hi pounds had been spent. Captain Ruehworth said he was in favour of. the remit. There wae only one solution, and that was to make farming profitable.

Mr. A. M. Carpenter eeid the reimposition of the graduated land tax had not opened land, but had caused it to be abandoned. In Britain land had been derated.

Mr. A. E. Lambert said that if the Government had any policy, they had no uniformity of policy.