LAND SETTLEMENT

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 5 September 1929, Page 5

LAND SETTLEMENT

GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS. LOAN FOR DEVELOPMENT. SOME OF THE PROVISIONS. (By Telegraph—Special to the Star.) WELLINGTON, Sept, 4. The Government’s land legislation, introduced to-day. is in exact (line with the Budget announcements, and embodies power to raise £5.000,000 annually to assist settlers and to promote settlement of undeveloped lands which will be made ready for settlement prior to being thrown open. It is intended to set up a Land Development Board, comprising the Minister of Lands,

Under-Secretary and Directo l-Generatt of Agriculture, Secretary to the Treasury, Controller of Accounts in the Lands Department, and the Superintendent of the State Advance® Office. This board has the duty of recommending to the Minister of Lands proposals for the breaking in and development of Crown and settlement landi before being offered for selection. Tlie Minister of Lands may set- up advisory committees comprising the Commissioner of, Crown Lands and not more than two other persons, who will advise the Development Board regarding the suitability for settlement of the lands. Such committee may work in more than one land district, or there may be more than on© committee in a, single land! district. The main development board may make advances to occupiers of undeveloped settlement lands, so' that settlers may erect buildings and make j improvements. Such advances are nob, to be made in respect of the purchase off live stock. The lands for settlement system is to be subject to considerable revision. Separate land purchase boards are' to be established for tlie North and South Islands, and the permanent head of the Department of Agriculture is added to the Land Purchase Board. The respective board of each island will be comprised of the Commissioners of Grown Lands for those islands, whilst the members of the Dominion Land Purchase Board wiii be deemed to be membens of both boards. The local boards will provide such functions a® indicated by the Dominion Board, and their gen-

era] purpose is indicated m a phrase of the clause' —“For the purpose of assisting in and expediting, the purchase of lands by the Crown.” The present law directs that the selling price of settlement lands must include the cost of acquisition, reading, survey, etc., but clause 40 empowers the Minister, where such price is not realisable, to fix a lower price, on the recommendation of the development board 1 . The period for the purchase of buildings on settlement land is to be extended from 21 to 36|- years. The present system for compulsory purchase of land is being replaced by the simpler process of utilising the method of taking land for public works. It enacts that both the unimproved value and the improved value shall be fixed by a compensation court, as provided by the Public. Works Act of 1925, and it will not be necessary for the_ Minister of Lands in making an application for a hearing to determine compensation for acquisition, to offer an amount of comiicn Ration

The aggregation clauses are strengthened by regarding the husband and wife a.s one and the same person in regard to landowning. Preference at ballots for land is to be given to landless [ applicants with dependent children and South African and the. Great War ( veterans. A new clause adds to the j preference, list landless applicants whom the board, after taking into, consideration their experience and skill and proximity of the area to their homes, should be allowed to rank equally with the others mentioned. Another clause enables further revaluation to be made of discharged; soldiers’ settlement lands, if the Central Land Board considers it to be. expedient.