LAND SETTLEMENT.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19467, 14 November 1928, Page 11

LAND SETTLEMENT.

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PBESS. Sir, —There has been a lot of criticism 'thrown at the Eeform Government about their not having thrown open more laud for settlement, during j the last three years; also that the Government has driven about thirteen thousand people oft the land. The * Labour and, United candidates, who j have been doing the criticising, know nothing about agriculture or they i would have let the land question alone. The Agricultural Department have plenty of good instructors, but a large number of the men on the land will not take advice from them or from any- [ one else. The would-be-critics says the rcause of men going oft' the land is that 1 the land was too dear. But the price of < the land had little to do with it, be- t cause they never paid the interest in 1 a large number of casos. It is also a i well-known fact that there are only a ] minority of the people in any profession or trade, as in fact anywhere, that is 1 capable of leading or directing.. The others have someone to direct them. Agriculture and horticulture are two of the most complicated of the sciences, and yet people take up these jobs as though the whole thing were a simple ] matter. The man who goes on to the land with a good training and money J to back him must also have ability and ® be a sticker, or failure is the result. These critics are most anxious to break I up large estates. Russia did that, and, to-day the people are starving. We ( have plenty of land opened up, but I what we want most is good farmers. We have a large number of high-class farmers, but not nearly sufficient of them. It 'is those good farmers who are showing by what they produce, v What a poor sample the others are, and l what a heavy, cost to the tax-payer. J This, of course, applies to most countries.' , I

. Here is a, sample received two'days ago in the "A.P.S. Journal" from the U.S.A. The total population increased nine per cent, from 1922 to 1926; Population on the farms decreased from 30,200,000 to 28,541,00 during the same time. The total agricultural production in the years 1922 to 1926 was 14 per cent, greater than in 1917 to 1921. This clearly proves that it is not the greater number of farmers and more land occupied that creates the greater w alth, but the better class of farmer, the man with more scientific knowledge, and able to make use of it. It is only wasting the tax-payer's money putting the misfits on the land. —Yours, etc., GEORGE LEE. , Tcmpleton, November lltli, 1928.