THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1927 SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 30 August 1927, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1927 SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

irregular but frequent intervals the public have served out to them, from Parliament and Press, tirades of abuse of our Government for its conduct of the process of settling returned soldiers on the land. Figures as to the monetary losses incurred by the State are quoted and the whole of them attributed to mismanagement on the part of the Government. When a soldier settler, even after getting State assistance and concessions far beyond a limit which business prudence would dictate, ‘‘walks off” the section which he originally thought himself lucky to draw, again it is the Government that is to blame. For every failure the Government is held responsible, while we hear nothing whatever of those who have achieved something like success. As in many other connections the Government is the convenient scapegoat, and everyone is prepared to sacrifice it upon the altar of that most incompetent and unthinking tribunal which we are wont to call ‘‘public, opinion.”

The fact of the matter is, of course, that it was this very same irresponsible tribunal that forced the hands of the Government of the day to carry out at high speed an undertaking which could with safety and security have been effected only by being spread over a more or less lengthy series of years. As it was, however, ‘‘the land” seemed to the multitiude to be the great source of profit and to offer the most promising reward that could be bestowed upon those who had fought our battles for us. The people’s sense of gratitude, all too short-lived, demanded that what, for the moment, appeared the best chance of attaining a competence be at once afforded to all those who oared to avail themselves of it. No thought was taken for the morrow, when those of the longer vision realised that the inevitable consequences of so great a war must, within an easily measurable distance of time, bring with them a very definite reaction that would make the success of a project of such magnitude more than questionable. The farmers were making mints of money, and so into farmers the returned soldiers had to be converted at short notice, and that regardless altogether of whether or not they were fitted for the calling.

No Government could have possibly stood against the clamant cry of the people to “put the soldiers on the land.” There were only a very few who, realising that tho current prosperity of the. primary producers was a thing of entirely artificial growth without any permanent rooting, ventured to raise a warning

protest. Their feeble voices were drowned in the general clamour for ‘‘land for the soldiers.” No government ever had a clearer mandate from tbs people than that which was imposed on our own in this respect. The responsibility for the undertaking thus lies with the people of the country, not with a Government which, in the final recourse, has, as their elective representatives, to do the will of the majority. And those who were loudest in their demands are now also loudest in their condemnation of the results of carrying out their imperative behests. A very great number of us are wont to think that the course thus pursued and its inevitable record of individual failures and of financial loss to the country are peculiar to New Zealand. Nothing, as a matter of' fact, could be further from the truth. The same tale has to be told of nearly every one of the selfgoverning dominions. It is not so very long ago that we were ahle to quote figures from Canada showing that even there, with its immense area of Crown land available for the purpose, the scheme of soldier settlement adopted resulted in a very substantial proportion of individual failures and in heavy financial loss to the Government treasury. In almost every State of Australia we have a like record. What really prompts the present writing are some figures that have just come before us with regard to the State of Victoria, of which a few may serve to prove that the losses incurred here are in no way singular. They are supplied by Mr. Hogan, the Premier and Finance Minister of the Labour Government which has just come into office, and which, of course, is only too pleased to fimd so knobby a stick wherewith to belabour the Administration it has displaced. Taking the figures as thus presented, we are told that the loan liability of the Victorian Government in respect of money borrowed for the purposes of soldier settlement is only a little short of 22 million sterling. The present annual outgoing from the State Treasury on this accoifnt is just on £1.200.000, while the aggregate amount paid out since the scheme was started is a little more than 8J million. During the last financial year the State expenditure on account of interest and administration costs was £1,372,000, and against this the collection made was only £300,000, leaving a deficit for the year of well over a million. During the whole period over which the aggregate of 8J million above mentioned was paid out the total incomings from the soldier settlers was only some If million, leaving a shortage of close on 7 millions, which has had to be met from time to time out of fresh loan moneys. This does not make up the whole tally of the money losses suffered by the State in pursuit of a scheme which, no doubt, there as here was compelled by popular demand upon the Govern uient of the day. There are some further and smaller items of outgoing to take into the reckoning. Enough has, however, been quoted to show that New Zealand's position with regard to soldier settlement is by no means unique, but can be duplicated in more than one quarter where similar plans have been adopted.