REHABILITATION SETTLEMENT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26968, 18 February 1953, Page 8

REHABILITATION SETTLEMENT

Progress Of Scheme Reviewed ABOUT 2000 MEN WAITING ' FOR FARMS (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 17. The Director of Rehabilitation (Mr F. Baker) said today that although more than 10,000 former servicemen had been settled under the rehabilitation land settlement scheme, it would take another two' seasons to settle all the men graded for dairying,* and it would be very much longer/before all those waiting for sheep farms were settled. At the end of October last year 2033 men were awaiting Of these 1000 were graded for sheepfarming and 950 for dairying. Mr Baker said that the men graded for dairying should all be settled by the end of 1954, but in .two or three years from now there would still be some 700 men graded for sheepfarming who would not have been settled. The Rehabilitation Board was concerned at this,'and to help the men graded for sheepfarming it had decided that where land was equally suitable for either sheep or dairying, consideration should be given to its use for sheepfarming. The board was also encouraging former servicemen with good farming backgrounds to seek extensions of their farm grading certificates to districts where land was available. The. Lands and Survey Department, which develops blocks for settlement, worked in close co-operation with the Rehabilitation Board. The amount of land being developed for dairying in the pumice areas of the Rotorua district and for sheepfarming in Northland outstripped the demand from local graded former servicemen, and constituted by far the greatest area available through the Crown for rehabilitation land settlement.

There were many men in other districts whose prospects of settlement locally were limited. This was particularly so for men seeking sheep farms in the Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, and Wairarapa districts. In the Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, Manawatu, Wellington, Nelson, and Marlborough districts, there were 423 men graded for sheepfarming, and 452 graded for dairying who were awaiting settlement, but properties at present being developed in this area would provide farms for only about 180. Mr Baker explained that by arrangement with the farming sub-commit-tees in the. Rotorua and Northland districts these men could now apply for extensions of their grading to the new districts. If their. general farming background and experience were good, they would be accepted by the farming sub-committees without the necessity of actual experience in the new locality.