GROUP SETTLEMENT SYSTEM

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 95, 17 January 1924, Page 6

GROUP SETTLEMENT SYSTEM

EXPERIENCE OF WEST AUSTRALIA Speaking at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon yesterday. Sir Alexander Matheson, representative of the London “Morning Post.” who has become a permanent resident of Wellington, stressed the importance of increasing the population of the Dominion. In that connection he advocated the adoption of the group system of settlement as carried out in Western -Australia, where he had lived for twelve years. Roughlv described, tho method was to settle twenty families on a block of land given them free, the only charge being the cost of clearing the land, which was paid for bv the State in wages to the settler himself. Each family was also paid 10s. a day sustenance allowance, and a house was provided at a cost of about £240. .In this way. some 1600 families had been placed on the land. When he had spoken to Ministers of the Crown here they had told him that they do not give away any land. Yet there were millions of acres of unoccupied land in New Zealand. Mr. Stuart Wilson asked what was the value of the land given away in West Australia. Sir Alexander Matheson replied that local residents were quite willing to give current prices for the land settled.