LAND SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 22 March 1929, Page 10

LAND SETTLEMENT

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —In common with others of your readers who interest themselves in the problem of land settlement, I appreciated your reports of the proceedings of the recent conference attended by representatives of many public organisations, some of whom came long distances to take part in its deliberations, actuated not by any selfish interests, but concerned purely for the public weal. There are one or two points referred to in your loading article of the 15th instant regarding the conference discussions which call for comment. Your editorial expression that it is so much nonsense to speak of arbitration awards as obstacles to land settlement because arbitration awards do not apply directly to the small farmer, must surely have been written hastily and without consideration, or it indicates a very narrow viewpoint. It would be as reasonable to contend that the consumer is not affected by Customs duties because he does not pay these direct to the Collector of Customs—a reductio ad absurdum. With regard to land tax as a hiudrance to land settlement, I desire to point out that the second-class lands which chiefly oewpied the attention of the conference cannot be economically settled in the first instance by the individual settler, but require to be "broken in" in lai-ge areas over a period of some five years, during which period no return whatever can be depended upon. The payment of land tax and perhaps graduated land tax, under such circumstances, is therefore a payment of taxes out of capital and not out o£ profits or revenue. Is this not a handicap to land settlement? Your article implies that I stated there were 6.000,000 acres of second-class lands in the North Matid awaiting development. | It is true that there are 0,000,000 acres I of pumice lands alone in the North Island | (to say nothing of 800,000 acres of gum l landß). 'These lands are held by the

Crown, the Natives, and private owners (vide Department of Lands 'own figures.}. Nevertheless, you are mistaken in attributing this unqualified statement to me. I am too familiar with the actual conditions and have studied this subject too many years to be bo misguided as to suggest that these great tracts are "awaiting development" in the ordinary sense of these words. What I did say, and what I have reiterated for years, is that o£t of these great areas surely there is at ieast half a million acres capable of profitable settlement. Is not that a conservative estimate?

I'rivately held land certainly conies within the scope of the conference discussion, and indeed it is in the development of such lands that the greatest hope of success seems at present to lie. Every possible inducement and encouragement should be given to induce the private owners of land to pave the way for the small settler to occupy such lands, but ho can only do so after the land is "broken in." To •break in" wholesale and to settle retail should 'be the policy adopted, whether, by the Crown or the private owner.

I trust that everyone, the Tress, the public, the Government, and -the private owner will co-operate to evolve practical Jand settlement, and helpful constructive suggestion toward,-! this end should be welcomed from any quarter; as the future prosperity of this Dominion, as well as the solution of the unemployed problea, is bound up in this issue—l am, etc., A. LEIGH HUNT.