SETTLEMENT OF SERVICEMEN

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27583, 14 February 1955, Page 9

SETTLEMENT OF SERVICEMEN

MORE GENEROUS HELP TO BUY FARMS

DECENTRALISATION OF CONTROL (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, February 13. More generous finance for farm purchases and the delegation to local committees of the authority to negotiate and approve purchases, are two changes announced by the Minister of Rehabilitation (Mr T. P. Shand) in an attempt to expedite the settlement of former servicemen graded “A” for farming. Mr Shand said that the new measures indicated the Government’s determination to complete rapidly one of the last major phases of the rehabilitation programme. He explained that the present limits of assistance were £5OOO for dairy farms and £6250 for sheep farms. It was customary to ask former servicemen to contribute on a £ for £ basis above these limits, but the Government was prepared, in suitable cases, to accept considerably less. “The Government is in the market for as many single-unit or easily subdivisable properties as we can get,” said Mr Shand. “The former servicemen who will be settled on these farms have waited a long time for rehabilitation, but the fact that it is 10 years since the war finished does not lessen the country’s obligation. “We are ready to pay fair but not fancy prices, and I appeal to all those with farms to sell to offer them promptly,” the Minister concluded.