NEEDY SOLDIER-SETTLERS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 41, 17 August 1921, Page 4

NEEDY SOLDIER-SETTLERS

When the State finds money for assisting needy soldier-settlers, should the money be expended in road-works (from which the soldiersettlers may draw wages for work done) or should it be,,expended in increasing (by addition or remission) the soldier-settler's capital out of which he improves his farm ? This is substantially the question which was the subject of a no-deci-sion debate at the last meeting of the Advisory Board of the War Relief Societies. Ap a rule, it 'is better for "the settler to earn his living on his section than away from his section. His primary purpose is to live on his section and to make it produce. It is true that a slump in the prices of what he sells—unaccompanied by a compensating fall in the prices of-what he buys—may make producing temporarily unprofitable, but it is morally bad to en-

courage a settler to think along such lines. If, however, he must perforce resort to road-work, it is better that he should work on roads that improve his own 'transport facilities. To'improve the road to a farm is in some cases as much a work of production as improving the farm itself; and if such roads were not made—as they should have been—before the settler Avent in, work thereon may prove his best salvation. But the question is one to be decided by circumstances, rather than by any general rule. Road-work not essential to the settler's farming, but organised for mere relief purposes, appears to be the least-desirable form of assistance. The best class of improvement is that which attaches to the land or its approaches, and which yields a tangible result.