LAND SETTLEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 20634, 6 November 1930, Page 8

LAND SETTLEMENT

GOVERNMENT'S WORK [i’Kii United I’kess Association.] WELLINGTON, November 5. Steps are being taken by the Government to put into operation that part of the Land Laws Amendment Act ot this year relating to development and settlement. Cabinet dealt with the question to-day. and the Acting Prime Minister (Mr Ransom) announced this evening that a total of £34,000 had been authorised for developmental work upon several largo blocks of Crown land upon which settlers are to bo placed, or upon which they are already installed. It has been decided to push ahead with reading and the survey of the Mohakau block of 10,040 acres south of Wairoa, and Cabinet to-day authorised an expenditure of £12,000 for this work. This will bo carried out preparatory to the block being thrown open for settlement, but the form of actual development has imt yet been decided. In addition. Cabinet authorised the sum of £IO,OOO to bo spent upon both sections of the Ngakuru block in the Rotorua district, and £12,000 for the completion of the development of the To Kainvhata, block, near Auckland. figures made available by the Lands Department show the activities of the State in making advances to settlers since the beginning of the present year. The total amount advanced to date is £130,554. Loan applications made Hinder one part of the Act numbered 155, their value being £77,951). 01 these, the Land Board recommended 113 of a value of £48,034 for favourable consideration, and tbo Development Board approved 110 of a total value of £42,931. Under another section of the Act a totahof nineteen applications for loams was reccjvod, the value of the slims sought being £14,262. The Land Board recommended seventeen whoso value was £8,017. and the Development Board approved of sixteen valued at £7,797. The total number of applications was 174, of tbo value of £98,221, and the number approved was 12G, of tbo value of £50,734. In addition, authorisations totalling £79,820 wero made for the development of unoccupied Crown land. Of this, £69,055 was authorised for the development of ordinary Clown lands, and the remainder, £10,765, was set aside for the development of settlement land. Immediate steps have boom taken by the Government to nut into effect the scheme for the extension of group settlement wdiosc authorisation was contained in this year’s Act.