HAUTOKI SETTLEMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 19 October 1926, Page 5

HAUTOKI SETTLEMENT.

REDUCTION ASKED IN VALUATION. DEPUTATION TO MINISTER. While the Minister of Lands f-the Hon. A. D. McLeod) was in New Plymouth a deputation from the soldier settlers in the Huatoki block waited on him and asked for a reduction in valuations of sections. Mr Duff, a settler, asked the Minister to see the settlement. The Minister sa,id he had given much consideration to this matter and similar cases in the Dominion, and' found that' trouble was caused by soldier settlers not carrying out the original intentions of those responsible for the purchase of the lands. At the same time the department, too, might have over-estimated the capacity of a district to absorb labour, but throughout New Zealand at the time of the war there was a calling out by public men and politicians that the Government should acquire properties near towns and cut them up into small areas for occupation by working men, who .would do a certain amount of cultivation in their spare time, also keep a cow or tw r o, and thus help them to cone with the increased cost of living. He knew as a practical man that it was impossible for a man to live the whole of his time in these small sections and earn a living sufficient to keep himself and a wife and family, even if he got the land for nothing. The land had a certain suburban value, and how they were to make this fit in with, farm values was one of the difficulties the department was up against. Dr Duff said the settlers were not expecting anything for nothing. All they wanted was a fair thing. They did'not consider they were getting that at the present time. One of the great difficulties of the settlers, too, was that the land had deteriorated to such an extent that they had not the money to make it productive. Some parts were so overgrown with gorse, for instance, that it was costing €lO per acre to grub it. The Minister said it might be that the TTuatoki areas wore either too large or too small. No man could tell him. however, that the settler who worked in town for 48 hours a week could not find 1 at least another 15 or 20 hours a week to spend on his section in improving it. A settler on a three or four acre section should be able to develop it himself. It was a home; that was the big thing. Yesterday afternoon the Minister spent between two and three hours at the settlement, and personally interviewed a number of the settlers, who explained their grievances to him. — Abridged from News.