LAND SALES ACT

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 September 1943, Page 6

LAND SALES ACT

FARMERS’ UNION PROPOSAL

WELLINGTON, September 28. “The results of the election show clearly that the farming community has registered a most emphatic protest against the Servicemens Settlement and Land Sales Act, said Mr Walter Horrobin, Dominion treasurer of the New Zealand Farmers Onion, to-day. “There is not one rural electorate in the Dominion where the Government, has been given any real support by the farmers. As the majority of farmers to-day are returned men of 1914-18, it is also an indication of what these men think 01. the Government’s action in making use of the title ‘Servicemen’s Settlement in an Act designed to take away from reurned soldiers the protection they had under the Lands for Settlement Act. The loss of his seat by the Minister of Agriculture in so decided a fashion is a sacrifice which Mr Barclay has been made to offer on the altar of sectional interests, and can be largely set down to the passing of the Land Sales Act. “The Prime Minister must now decide whether he is going to govern the country in accordance with the wishes only of the Labour Party, or whether he will govern it in accordance with the interests of the country as a whole. If Mr Fraser desires to obtain the whole-hearted co-opera-tion of all sections of the community, then he cannot ignore the indications given by the poll. In these circumstances it is to be hoped and expected that the Government will consult representatives of the farming community and will endeavour to get an agreement witn them, particularly with a view to bringing forward a Servicemen’s Settlement Act and a Land Sales Act, both Acts designed to enable New Zealand to make the finest possible job of enabling her returned men to go on the land. Such action would go a long way towards giving farmers some encouragement in the strenuous efforts which they are making to arrest the decline in production. It would also go a long way towards restoring the co-opera-tion which has long been lacking between the farming community and the Government but whidh is urgently necessary for the most efficient prosecution of New Zealand’s part in the war.”

AUCKLAND DECISION AUCKLAND, September 28. Subject to the approval of th Dominion executive of the Farmers’ Union, the Auckland. Provincial Executive of the union has decided to urge members in the province not to sit as members of any court or committee under the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act. This decision was made at the last meeting on September 15, but a public announcement was deferred unu after the General Election. Members of the executive who had been in Wellington recently reported to the meeting that the Dominion president (Mr W. W .Mulholland) had made a request- that the Farmers’ Union should take no part in implementing the Act.