SOLDIER SETTLERS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 273, 2 November 1932, Page 8

SOLDIER SETTLERS

DIFFICULTIES OF THE TIMES AN ADMIRAL SPIRIT. DEPARTMENTAL REPORT. (By Telegraph—Special to “Tribune.”) Wellington, Nov. 1. Amounts outstanding by sundry debtors and postponements have increased from £447,271 at March, 1931, to £661,651 at March, 1932, states tho annual report on discharged soldiers’ settlement, presented to Parliament today. Cash receipts for the year also fell by £158,246 below those of last year, it is stated that 748 additional loans, amounting to £107,189, wet« granted.

“Reports received from the various land districts show that our soldier settlers are meeting the difficulties ot the times with an admirable spirit and are as a rule doing their best with their land in an endeavour to meet their obligations and to better their own position,” the report says. “It may be thought by some that the administration of discharged sqjdier .settlement should now be more ur less a routine matter. This is, however, very far from being the case, and the department holds the opinion that soldier settlement is as yet • long way removed from the stage where the role to be played by the controlling authority becomes principally that of a collector of rent and interest. It would seem, indeed, that the State'* obligation to many of these men and their families have not been met by placing them on the land and by carrying on up to the present point. Sympathetic guidance and control will b* . needed for years yet in a great many cases if the great work which was begun by the passing of the Discharged Soldiers Settlement Act of 1915 is t* be completed in a fitting manner. “The department has gained an f«timate knowledge of the special problems of soldier settlers through long and close association with their and is endeavouring to use that knowledge in the best interests of th* settlers and of the State,”