SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS

Evening Post, Volume 148, Issue 148, 20 December 1923, Page 13

SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS

(IROH OCR OWN CORREIPOXDSHT.)

LONDON, Kith October. "A.F.T.C.," writing to the "Manchester Guardian," gives an interesting picture of the soldier settlement at Turakina Valley. Amongst other things, he' explains that the soldiers who took over the farms into which the estate had been subdivided found times very hard. Their rents were based on the prices which obtained for dairy produce on the London market when the land was first purchased by the Government —something over 2s a pound for butter. The market tumbled, the first season the soldier settlers had on their farms. It fell, to less than Is, and. they could not hope to pay.their way, and they never have done so since. ' The Government dare not put them off for fear o{ the public outcry that would inevitably follow, for New Zealand still thinks a good deal of the men who went away. Besides, it is the Government's fault for paying too much for the land. So the ex-soldiers do as they did in dark days during the war—"carry on." "The men are 'grousing' as they did on service, and, perhaps, with far more reason. One. man flourishes a bit of paper, a cheque apparently, and tells .his neighbours that this is all the Government has left him after deducting its dues from what the butter factory has paid for his year's milk. A paltry one-and-eleven—one shilling and. elevenpence for a year's 'work. -"He -spices his complaint with colonial" oaths, pungent but not obscene. He wants to know what 'Bill' Massey, as Prime Minister, ia going to do about it."