SETTLING UP FOR THE SOLDIER SETTLER

Feilding Star, Volume 2, Issue 280, 9 July 1924, Page 4

SETTLING UP FOR THE SOLDIER SETTLER

Tlio intimation given to the soldioi settlers along the Hauraki Plains that at last tho- llevaluation Hoard, lias been able to> announce the result oi' its consideration of ilio case; of the soldier settler who lias been overburdened with rents, rates, and accumulated debts may be taken as an indication of- what the policy is to be. For snroly the Haurakians are not. to be specially favoured. When the northerners are. told that the Dominion Board is recommending to the Government/ that "arrears of rent be written off and the rent- remitted for from two to four years," that must mean a policy plank, and not a more local and spoeja.ll arrangement. So, too, we may take it that the intimation of another recommendation that "Land Boards .should giant, loans" is another new plank for the Government's policy towards soldier settlors We. will not add. to tbe report's facilities and privileges the purely local examples that .some of the Haurakiaiis are to have their valuations reduced from £lB to Co per acre and that tlio average reduction i« about £7 per acre. That sounds almost too good In be true. Wo sincerely trust the whole of these intimations are absolutely accurate, and are to materialise for the soldier settler generally. For the sooner the Government lias the courage to relieve the men of their "dead horse?' and give them a future with a fighting chance of making good and, prospering on the land the better it will be for tlr> men and their families and for the producing interests. of the Dominion. Not one such settler who has endured so lone" should now he allowed to drop, out if reduction and remittance can keep him going as a settler.