SECTION RESERVED

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16851, 3 June 1920, Page 4

SECTION RESERVED

* COMPLAINT BY SOLDIER SETTLERS. rsrr.ciAT, to "the prbss.") TT'JARr, .T.une 2. At the ballot yesterday for sections in tho Lambrook settlement. con?idors,lile objection was taken when the Commissioner of Crown Lands announced that the homestor.d block ("section 2, of &S3 acres) had been reserved for a son of the previous owner of the estate. The son is a returned soldier, but the applicants said that could be said of all of them, and that they should all be placed on the same level in the ballot. Immediately following the ballot, a number of applicants who _ had not drawn sections held a meeting of protest in the Municipal Chambers, when they expressed themselves strongly concerning the disposal of tho homestead block." Some of the applicants applied lor this block only, including; three who liad come specially from Christchurch. to go in for it, and all contended tliat if ft had been arranged to withhold tho section from ballot, all the applicants should have been informed of the fact, so that they might have been saved the time and cost of going in for it. As an outcome of tho meeting, tho following was drawn up and signed by the 1-i men who were present:— "We, the undersigned applicants, wish to emphatically protest against the allotment of section 2 (homestead block), Lambrook settlement, to Mr A. H. Gillingham without going to the ballot. Tho majority of the applicants have lost time and money in balloting lor this section, and the matter will be put before tho Returned Soldiers' Association and the Press."

A copy of the above was handed to <he Commissioner of Crown Lands by Those who formulated it, for the.lion. I>. H. (-inthrie, Minister of Lands. Seen later hv a "Herald'' reporter, tho Commissioner said the position was tliat whfu Mr V. JJ. Gillinghum offered Lambrook to the Government, ho said that he wished to reserve the homestead lor his son, Mr A. H. Gillingham, who had left with the Main Body, and was then still at the war. The sale went through without the homestead being so reserved by the- Land Purchase Board, who, however, have complied with such requests dn other cases. The Land Board have discretionary power under tho Act to do what they think proper in the interests of closer settlement, and when Mr Gillineham, sen., represented to them that his son had done four years' war service, and that on this account and for sentimental, reasons he would like him to get the homestead, the Board considered it would be a fair'thing to grant the request, especially as Mr Gillingham, jitn., knew the land well" (having been born and brought up on it), and under such circumstances they thought he would probably bo able to give useful hints to the holders of other sections on the settlement who misihfc bo strangers to" tho district. The Board considered that under .such circumstances it would ho ill tho interests of closer settlement to comply with the request, and they exercised their power to do this. Jhe reason that the section was not withdrawn from the list of those to he hilllotted for was that the resolution allotting tection. 2 to Mr Gillingham's son was not passed till this morning.