LAND DEVELOPMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 146, 17 December 1937, Page 18

LAND DEVELOPMENT

A NATIONAL ASSET

POWER TO SPEND £1,462,000

The statement contained in a Press Association message from Rotorua to the effect that the Departments under his control would spend well over £2,000,000 on Native and European land development during the present financial year was described last evening by the Minister of Lands (the Hon. F. Langstone) as giving quite a wrong impression. In his speech at the opening of the new tourist resort at Orakei-Korako, said the Minister, he had referred to land development, and to other activities of the Departments under his control, and had stated that these Departments had' received authorities for an expenditure aggregating £2,675,000. The Departments concerned were the Lands and Survey Department,, the State Forest Service the Tourist and Publicity Department, and the Native Department. So far as land development was concerned, the authorities for the present financial year amounted to £1,462,000, provision having been made for the purchase of land where required, the granting of development loans to Crown settlers holding undeveloped land, the development of unoccupied land, small farm settlement, Native land development, and Native housing. It was not expected that that amount would be expended in the present financial year, but land development work in general would be largely extended and, on his recent visit to the Rotorua district in company with his officers, he had selected a further 12 200 acres. The areas were situated at Tokoroa, Ngakuru, Tarawera, and Edgecumbe, and steps would be taken immediately to have the preliminary work put in hand with a view to the development of the land in the interests of greater production, and the absorption of surplus labour in the creation of a valuable national asset.