LAND FOR RETURNED SOLDIERS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 7 June 1916, Page 4

LAND FOR RETURNED SOLDIERS

Replying to a letter in which the Defence Minister notified that certain land had been reserved in Taranaki for returned so.diers, Mr D. J. Hughes, as a member of the New Plymouth 'Recruiting Board, has added his objections to the protests already made from several quarters. Writing under date June Gdi, he says:

"As one who has been through pioneer bush work in Taranaki, I wish to respectfully point out to you that the Minister of Lands is, in my opinion, making a huge mistake in providing returned soiaiers witn the class or iaiiu mentioned. A man should be in the best physical health to go into the backblocks, and requires capital at his back and to wait many years before thinking of famliy ties. I had no idea such proposals would be offered to our returned boys. When I brought the subject un•dar your notice it was, as then stated hy me, viz., the placing of Taranaki men on land they were familiar with and. could work. There are numerous large holdings of first-class dairy lands suitable even on the Waimate Plains, and between Hawera and Wanganui on the coast. I know several- men who have aggregated their holdings into thousands of acres which are worth between £40 and £80 per acre since the freehold tenure is' in view of West Coast Settlement lands passed by Act of Parliament recently. »maii nom-ngs or good, level land of this class should be offered to suitable Taranaki men, and would, I am sure, be more suixeu to the majority of them than isolated, broken country, which is nearly all second and third-class land. As our returning heroes will have endured quite eiiougii narusnips and privations, may I ask you, sir, to once again bring the matter and my objection before the Minister for Lands and ask him to endeavor to cater for those willing to avail themselves of good . dairyin°land." °