LAND SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 74, 1 April 1929, Page 11

LAND SETTLEMENT

AREAS AVAILABLE

L'ABO UR INVESTIGATIOXS

Land settlement is referred to in the annual report of the national executive of tho Now Zealand Labour Party as one of tho most fruitful avenues for improving the conditions of the Dominion and of absorbing many of those now unemployed.

The report quotes detailed statistics as to tho amount of land available for settlement,' pointing out that there are 24,757,262 acres of occupied laud in the Dominion which has not been improved, 2,2b'7,214 acres of which are barren and unproductive. Reference is also madu to the pumieo belt in tho Auckland and Wellington Land Districts, comprising 1,715,706 acres, more than half of which is owned by the Crown, and tho balance by Natives. Members of the Labour Party have recently, paid visits to this area. •■ .

Tho report states that an examination of tho land suggested that a turning over of the soil with the plough automatically improved the soil to such an extent that with the addition of a reasonable quantity of fertiliser, permanent pasture could bo obtained within four to five years. The evidence submitted was that at a cost, of £6 10s per acre within tho period mentioned, an area varying from 250 to 400 acres could be utilised to provide a reasonably substantial income for a family.

"It appears from the evidence," says the executive, "that tho Government has at its disposal a largo area of land which can be profitably settled at a minimum cost, and the Labour Party, in and out of Parliament, will support in every way whatever steps arc taken to develop the land and place settlers on it. Tho mistakes of the past in placing individual settlers with their wives and children'on land from which an income is not immediately available should be avoided. Group settlement, with expert and competent supervision, and full attention to roads and transport facilities should, in the opinion of your executive, enable many farms to spring up out of the present wilderness of ferii, scrub, and tussock."