STANDING FIRM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 198, 21 August 1943, Page 6

STANDING FIRM

SETTLEMENT SCHEME

COMMENT BY MR. FRASER

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. "The bill before the House is brought forward with the express purpose of enabling servicemen to be settled effectively and satisfactorily," said the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, in reply to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Holland, in discussing the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Bill in the House of Representatives last night. He added that the bill was also designed to prevent returned men being placed in a position under which they were bound to be unsuccessful and ruined. The bill had been framed by men who had had the greatest experience of land transactions, Mr. Fraser continued, and the principles of the measure had been unanimously supported in the country and in the House. Nobody had challenged the principle of placing settlers, especially returned servicemen, on land at its productive value. The Government had asked for alternatives and that day the executive of the Farmers' Union had met him and other members of the Government with suggestions. Some of them appeared to be drastic and some revolutionary. They required some time for working out. Members of the deputation, he said, were perfectly frank. They did not say that their proposals were the last word —only that they were the best that could be produced at the moment. He would bring them before the House at a later stage. He was prepared to look at everything and the proposals were at the present time being closely examined.

Included in the suggestions, said the Prime Minister, was one to limit the amount of mortgage to prevent speculation, and another that all land for sale should be first offered to the Government for the settlement of servicemen.

Mr. Bodkin (National, Central Otago): Quite a reasonable proposition.

Mr. Fraser: It requires tion, obviously.

Agreement With Aims

Continuing, Mr. Fraser said that the methods proposed under the bill were objected to by the Farmers' Union, though there was agreement with what the bill was aiming at. That was the position they were in. The principles of the bill were approved by the House of Representatives early that morning, and the Government was determined that it would not go to the -country without having made provision for the settlement of servicemen on fair grounds. Everybody was agreed that that should be done.

Mr. Fraser reiterated that he would be willing to listen to any alternative suggestions. In the meantime the position of the R.S.A. should be made perfectly clear. The Minister of Lands, Mr. Barclay, had received a message from the vicepresident of the association, Mr. C. O. Bell, last evening, in which he said that he had discussed the matter with his president, Mr. B. J. Jacobs. The message said that the association approved entirely of the principles of the bill, but suggested separate bills for control of sales of land and soldier settlement. It added that the freeholds would be preferred. Mr. Fraser said the freehold was not an essential part, but the Government would consider sympathetically the granting of the freehold to ex-servicemen.

Other discussions on the Land Salfs Bill appear on the Leader Page.