SUBSIDISED SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1929, Page 8

SUBSIDISED SETTLEMENT

"Is it going to be a failure?" asked Mr. Coates. To which Mr. Forbes replied: "I don't think it will be a failure, and I don't think any member of the House hopes it will be." The "it," of course, is the new Land Bill, and particularly its proposal to' spend on undeveloped lands five millions of loan money, an amount somewhat in line with what the State has already written off soldier settlement lands. Now, what is a "failure"? If "failure" means inability to load, the settler with the whole cost of breaking-in the undeveloped land, we think the Bill will fail. But if we understand correctly the intentions of its framers— rather cloudily outlined in Mr. Forbes's speech—they expect as a matter of course that some of the costs will not be loaded on the sections; in other words, the settlers will be'subsidised fo that extent at the cost of the Government, just as farmers and workers are subsidised now by receiving unpaid or underpaid service at the cost of the Department of Railways. Therefore, if the State loses something on the first cost of this land settlement, that will not be deemed failure. A Government starting in candidly on a limited losing proposition is far more honest than a Gov^ eminent that spends many millions on a supposedly self-supporting soldier settlement, and then writes millions off. Another point about an anticipated loss on undeveloped land, as compared with an unanticipated loss on buying developed land, is that the former adds to the sum total of agricultural occupation. It creates more farms, and ought to create more farm-production. ' A loss is more pardonable in the breaking-in of new country—always provided, of course, that the loss is not excessive,"which is purely a managerial question. As Mr. Forbes said, the success will depend upon the administration, and those "tired heads of departments" —Mr. Poison's phrase, not ours— have a great chance to win glory as well as superannuation. Although the Bill might have gone much farther, we cannot agree with the criticism that there is "nothing in it." Is five millions sterling nothing? Judging by certain other works, one would almost answer yes. But surely the land selected will not be porous enough to let the whole five millions percolate through and be lost.