SETTLEMENT OF SERVICEMEN

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27427, 13 August 1954, Page 12

SETTLEMENT OF SERVICEMEN

PRICES OF FARM IMPROVEMENTS PETITION BEFORE HOUSE (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 12. The whole scheme of settling former servicemen on the land should be investigated, and if the petitioners could establish What they had told the Lands Committee, then the Government was certainly not carrying out its promise to settle former servicemen at 1942. values, said the DeputyLeader of the Opposition (Mr C. F. Skinner) in the House of Representatives today. Mr Skinner was discussing the report of the Lands Committee, presented by its chairman (Mr E. H. K. Gordon), on a petition by Malcolm Newton Belcher and others, of Okato, Taranaki, praying for a reduction of the prices of improvements on the farm properties on which they had been settled under the rehabilitation scheme.

Mr Gordon reported that the committee had no recommendation to make. The petitioners had not exhausted their legal remedies, and a similar case was at present being decided before the Land Valuation Court. Mr Skinner said it would appear that the petitioners had been settled on areas with a good deal of waste land. The Minister of Rehabilitation (Mr T. C. Macdonald) said the petition involved a previous decision as to what constituted 1942 values. He was surmised that such complaints came in the form of a petition without prior reference to rehabilitation committees. He thought Mr Skinner was endeavouring to make political capital out of the oetition. After further discussion the committee’s report was tabled.