PUBLIC WORKS AND FARMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 10

PUBLIC WORKS AND FARMS

Something ie being done by the Government to bring deteriorated lands back into production, but the progress made up to the present is "not impressive, especially when it is contrasted with the £17,000,000 activities of the Public Works Department. The suggestion of the Palmerston Chamber of Commerce that a reasonable portion of this huge expenditure should be earmarked for the restoration of lands which have gone back and the improvement of good lands so that more settlers may be placed upon them and the eiport margin thus increased is well worthy of serious consideration, backed up, as it is, by an investigation of suitable areas and a list of prospective occupiers. The need for a poor man's land settlement policy has been urged very insistently, but without much effect. The widening of the channels of land utilisation would divert men from the non-productive work in which thousands are to-day engaged into an occupation which would give a good interest return and perhaps retrieve the capital also. In these days of quotas and levies additional production may appear of doubtful value, bat there is no indication that the point of saturation has been reached in the dairy markets of the world.