INDUCEMENT NEEDED

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 58, 6 September 1945, Page 5

INDUCEMENT NEEDED

SETTLING OF SERVICEMEN

If the present rate of settling returned servicemen on the land were not speeded up many applicants for farms would be receiving- the old age pension before they received a farm, said Mr. E. B. K. Gordon (National, Rangitikei) in his Budget speech in the House of Representatives last night. If the Government really desired to settle men on the land, he said, some inducement should be offered to parents and friends of servicemen to settle their sons and friends on the land.

He had been speaking to a farmer who had four sons and one daughter overseas, said Mr. Gordon. He had the idea of, cutting his farm into two to settle two of the boys when they returned, but had in mind that under the present law he would be allowed only a £500 exemption from gift duty. If the Government increased that amount when it was a question of assisting returned men more land would be made available for settlement. He also asked for encouragement for elderly people to sell properties that would be suitable for returned servicemen. Some farmers v/ho had borne the heat and burden of the day were afraid to sell their properties because they would not have sufficient to live on. He suggested that the money from the sales of such property, when reinvested,, should not be subject to the 33 1-3 per cent, unearned income tax. He also advocated that when stock was sold from such farms it should be treated as capital, not income.