CLOSE SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 74, 28 March 1930, Page 12

CLOSE SETTLEMENT

PROGRESS IN BRITAIN

SUCCESS OF SMALL FARMS

EXAMPLE FOE DOMINION

A brief but interesting review of closer settlement in England before and since the war, was given by Sir Richard Winfrey, a member of tho British farmers' delegation which has been touring the Dominion, speaking yesterday as the guest of honour at the Now Zealand Club's luncheon. He was, he siated, greatly interested in closer settlement, as a means of preventing the "drift to tho towns"; and some 30 years ago ho had been instrumental, with others, iv establishing a closer settlement association m tho counties of Lincolnshire and ]N orfoJJc. The- association had induced Lord Lincolnshire to lease his farms to tho association as they became vacant, and in that way it had secured some *000 acres of land. Later the Crown leased to the association 1000 acres in Norfolk. He had been chairman of tho association since its inception. The men they placed on tho land had all been agricultural labourers who had been able to save a little out of their scanty wages, and their wages were very low in England before the war. They divided the land into holdings of from live to thirty acres. The associaiton had to-day 2GO tenants, and he was happy to say that during the whole of the 30 vcars they had not had 2 per cent, of failures on the land. (Applause.) They had a permanent steward looking after the estate, and he himself tad lived long enough to see-numbers ot their tenants go on to larger holdings, and quite a number of them had retired on a competency after 30 years. VITAL PROBLEM FOR NEW ZEALAND. He had, therefore, come to New Zealand full of a desire to see closer settlement go forward here. It was not for him, of course, after so short _ a visit, to express any very strong opinions; but he had come to the conclusion that the land would carry two or three times the population that was on it to-day, and he hoped that in due course New Zealand's legislators would earnestly devote their energies to the closer settlement problem. He believed that tho Dominion had lower people on the land to-day than it had live years ago; and if that was the case, closer settlement was a very vital problem. , . As a result of his work in connection with the Lincolnshire and Norfolk Small Holdings' Association when he got into Parliament some 20 years ago he became friendly with one ot the finest men he ever came in- contact with iv his life, the late Sir Henry Ca->pbell-Bannermau, then British Prime Minister, and they introduced in the House of Commons the urst Small Holdings Act, giving the county councils power to purchase laud in the agricultural counties, equip it, and place men on the land. The Act resulted in their getting 500,000 acres of land in small holdings cultivated in England; and, as land was f n at a reasonable price, the county councils were able to let it at an economic rent, high enough to pay principal and interest over a period of CO years. So that at the end of that time the county councils would have a very valuable asset, when the land had been bought and paid for by the small holders upon it. (Applause.) EX-SOLDIER SETTLEMENT. In the final years of the war it had been his duty to get placed on tho Statute Book the first Act, called the Small Holdings Colonies Act, to settle ex-service nien on the land; and, as the Government was very short of money, he had had to go to the landowners and make arrangements for the Government to take over their land and pay them for it later. That was only tho beginning, a very small scheme. One of those colonies was established on 1000 acres of Crown land just bordering on the Wash, in " Lincolnshire. Three farmers had been occupying tho thousand acres, but the Government bought them out,' and divided the area into ten-acre farms, thus providing for 100 ex-service men. The Government built them houses, etc., and equipped the farms. That was in the last year of the war, and many of the men had been injured at the Front. He had visited the settlement every year since, and 95 per cent, of the men had made good on their ten-acre plots. (Applause.) It was, he admitted, some of the best land in England; but it was let at a reasonable rent —50s an acre, with £10 for the house and £5 for the outbuildings, otc; or a total of £40 a year. All those men, though, they were 100 miles from the large markets,, had become intensive cultivators. Instead of being satisfied with potatoes, wheat, and barley, they had gone in for soft fruits— strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, etc., and some had gone in for growing asparagus, also tulips, narcissi, and other bulbs. Many of the men, who had not more than £100 to £150 capital to start with, were with ten times that amount now after ten years. (Applause.) ' That showed what could be' done by intensive cultivation; and they could not be surprised, therefore, that he was a most enthusiastic supporter of the division of the land amongst a greater number of people. WHAT CANADA HAS DONE. In Canada, added Sir Richard, they had succeeded remarkably well in settling ex-service men on the land; much better, ho thought, than England had done. The men were allowed to choose the province they would settle in. Tho Government had lent them money to purchase and equip the land and build houses; and he had it from a personal friend of his, who was Chief Commissioner for the land settlement scheme, that at least 80 per cent, of ex-service men had made good in all the provinces of Canada. (Applause.) That spoke well for the men, many of whom were Englishmen. (Applause.) At the close of his address to the New Zealand Club yesterday, Sir Richard Winfrey was presented by the chairman, on behalf of tho club, with a handsome paper-weight, a solid silver kiwi mounted on a greenstone base. The chairman said that the presentation was a small token of the club's appreciation of his presence with them that day and of tho very interesting address he had delivered.