Bay of Plenty Times WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 11th, 1918. WHAT HELP!

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 7064, 11 September 1918, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 11th, 1918. WHAT HELP!

A paternal Government talks much

about settling the returned soldiprs en the land, and the people, taking up the cry, "talk much about it too, until, with so much talking we'are in a fair way to believing that the unoccupied land problem ard the re-

turned soldier problem are settled oft hand, automatically solving the great, er problem of finding the wherewithal to meet the heavily increased financial tiurden the war has cast upon us. Rut it is much more profit-

able—and indeed much more to be desired—that we should have no disillusionment on the matter. There 'is at least one local returned soldier who has no false ideas on the subject. Applying in May last for a section a mile or two from town, suitable in

every way for a poultry farm, with the additional merit of being an exceedingly cheap proposition, he had all.the preliminaries completed in June. The Government then proceeded to have it valued. Whatever went wrong with the first valuation

is not stated, but, the Government decided upon a second valuation. About this time our returned soldier was beginning to find that his reserves were being encroached upon, and decided that he would be better oil

shifting for himself without waiting further on the pleasure of the Government to proceed with a very simple

proposition. He accordingly notified the Department that he wished to cry the bargain oft. That proposal, however, met with a very unsympathetic reply, and he had perfoice to go on with his lesson in patience, and continue tr.e drain on his resources. Then the, option over the property expired, the time was extended and during the past week this extension also expired, and still nu sign of completiou. So in desperation the returned soldier informs the Department that so far as he is concerned, the bargain

is aft. For poultry the season is gone, and with it much valuable time and money that can ill be spared. While prepared to admit that it is unreasonable to expect that returned soldiers can be planted on the land at even the same rate as the Government's temporary employees might plani trees in a prison camp, it is infamous to expect these returned men to submit to unwarrantable and vexatious delays in getting back to civilian life. The question of placing the returned men on the land is of great importi ance—second only perhaps to the provision of good roads—and demands

| intelligent handling, but it surely cannot be urged that there is any intelligence behind a system that requires over three months to get a soldier settled on a farm costing a few hundreds. If it takes that time to do it now what is going to happen when the men come back in thousands instead of hundreds. Ministers spend too much time perambulating the country on all sorts of tin-pot missions whioh could more profitably be devoted to providing more practicable application of their existing theories of land settlement and incidentally earnestly considering whether these theoiies themselves might uot be vastly improved, The case wo have mentioned in by no means an extreme one as there are, we uudcrstand, two cases locally in which returned meu have been waiting much longer to get on to their s ctious.