LAND FOR ITS DEFENDERS

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 1, 3 January 1916, Page 6

LAND FOR ITS DEFENDERS

According to a report in the Auckland Star, the Prime Minister has given some large round figures of the land stated to bo available, as time goes on, for returned soldiers. Up to tho present an Area, of' 70,000 acres had been definitelyreserved for them, and altogether the provision would be 439,000 acres, including 134,000 acres in Auckland Province, 74.000 in Wellington, 31^000 in Marlborough, 26,(juj >in Southland, and' 17,000 in Otago. These big figures may startle many a student of the land—not because it is feared that an arfct of 439,000 acres is too large to offer (on terms) to the defenders of about 65,000,000 acres, but because they have had a belief that the Government had not yet a large area ready for settlement by soldiers. What is the extent of rugged hill-tops and scarps and other'wild country, whether wooded or otherwise rough, .in the 439,000 acres? Such figures, which may look impressive on paper or may sound well from a platform, may take a. very different shape when unsuitable land is eliminated. The soldiers need a proclamation of land which would not require a repetition of parts of the Ga-lli-poli campaign. It would be deplorable cruelty (however unintentional) to pitch any returned soldier from one war into another—for it is notorious that some localities of the hinterland are not easily broken-in for pasture, crop or fruit. The duty of the Prime Minister to the soldiers and to 'the general public is to restrict himself to figures which show the areas of land on which a soldier may reasonably hope to make a living without an excessive tax on his strength. Representatives of the State have to see that its defenders have a recognition worthy of their part in the great war.