REPATRIATION BILL

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23414, 22 August 1941, Page 6

REPATRIATION BILL

POSSIBLE POWER TO ACQUIRE LAND

MINISTER’S HINT

(P.R.) WELLINGTON, August 21. A hint that the coming Repatriation Bill might Include further powers for the Government to acquire land from large holders and make it available to returned soldiers was given by the Minister for Agriculture (the Hon. J. G. Barclay) when replying in the House to-night to criticism of the costof Government land development schemes. , , , "Behind all this attack on land development and small farms schemes is fear by Opposition members that the Government is going to settle returned soldiers on the land of their friends, after taking it from; them at a fair price,” Mr Barclay said. "See what the Opposition shy*s when our Repatriation Bill comes down; If there Is any threat to landholders they will find some way of opposing it. We are not going to shirk a fight to take land from those who have 'got more than they can use, to take’ it, not at an inflated price, but at a fair price, and give it to soldiers." Mr Barclay said that schemes had been started by both the present and past Governments, largely to find work for unemployed. Mr Broadfoot had criticised the Ohakune scheme, stating that the cost of development was £159 an acre. The development of this block, however, had been started in 1933. Mr W. J. Poison (Opposition, Stratford): YoUr own return shows 1935. ■ Mr Barclay; It was started in 1933. It had been an expensive block to develop, the Minister said. It was asked for by the Unemployment Board when the last Government was in power. It was never considered that it would be made to pay,, but nevertheless the country now had some asset in it. A total of 650 actes were now in grass, and another 250 acres were being developed. The cost was not £159 an acre. The cost of developed land was £126 an acre, and that cost Included money spent oh the 250 acres partly developed. If the work had been done with modern methods and machinery the cost would have been only £5 or £6 an acre, said 1 Mr Barclay, emphasising that the main purpose had been to provide work for men. A total of 160,610 acres had been developed, or were being developed. The total average cost to-day was about £ls an acre,, That Included the money spent on land that was partly developed, and it . Included a subsidy. The total expenditure on 160,610 .acres was £2,516,807, and that-included £BOO,OOO of subsidy. “The members of ■ the Opposition have been taking • the total cost and dividing It by the number of acres tn grass, forgetting the land partly developed,"

Mr Poison: There is not a tittle of fact, in that statement ‘‘Grave charges have been made against the Government’s administration, and so far we have had two speakers, Including one Minister, from the Government side, who have made no attempt to answer these charges,” said Mr W. S. Goosman (Opposition, WAikato). "Are these reports made to r6veal or to obnceal?” he asked. “Unless a report is understandable it is a waste of time and paper vo issue It.”

Mr Goosman said that the, new name, national development, was not enough. What was needed was new efficiency, a new sense of responsibility, less talk, fewer figures, and not less wages for the men, but better value for the money spent