LAND PROBLEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 27 October 1928, Page 6

LAND PROBLEMS

WHAT THE COUNTRY NEEDS

HON T. S. WESTON’S VIEWS,

WELLINGTON, Oct. 25

The problem of expediting land settlement has been considered by the Hon T. Shailer Weston. He is president of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, and this question was dealt with in his address to the annual meeting. '

He said that much of the land now held in New Zealand in large areas was purely pastoral country, which was more efficiently worked in such areas. Not being.,,suited for agricultural purposes or dairying, it did not respond in r the same way to applied labour as agricultural and dairy land did. It had been proved /by ‘experience that to cut up this class of land was a mistake. The wealthy pastoralist also was required, if we were to have better flocks and build up herds of high-class cattle. Breeders such as we had in New Zealand were of great assistance to the farming community. To regard them as hindrances to progress was a foolish mistake-. To increase the graduated land-tax would be to injure and hamper men engaged in work vital to the progress of the community. At the same time 1 would he an injustice to those engaged ‘jin manufacturing «nd other city trades and industries which required liigh-valued city land for their operations. _ . . It was agricultural and dairying land where production by subdivision could he largely increased that we desired to see more closely settled, arid unoccupied land now outside the margin of cultivation that we must bring into bearing. An increase of the graduated laud tax was an unscientific solution of this problem. it would injure the pastoralist and the manufacturer and the tiaclei " 10 were doing good national work. Some other, solution' must be found. Compulsory purchase by the State wag always expensive, and would entail heavy borrowing. Unless entered upon at the beginning of a steadily rising land market, it did not enable the, new settler to acquire his land at, a reasonable cost unless the State was prepared "to malvo a substantial loss on every farm handled. Undoubtedly, with the New Zealand standard of wages* the dairy farmers would depend in the future more upon the single-handed efforts of themselves and their families to work their farms. They would find they could obtain better net returns ifor themselves working smaller areas. Hence, without any artificial pressure, the present dairy farms in the near future would be extensively subdivided. The State would be able to assist in* this by helping purchasers to finance, rather than by putting up, the market on these purchasers by wholesale Government purchases for State settlemnet. Moneys borrowed to lend .to. purchasers would be used more advantageously than if expended in compulsory purchases. The expenditure of £15,000,000 in settling returned soldiers upon the land did much to create the disastrous boom of 1920. What would be the result of the expenditure of even larger sums now in State purchase P The shrinkage of rural land values that occurred eight years ago could only result in!., a contraction of the margin of cultivation. This contraction was a reality that had to be faced, and the wonder was that people who boasted of their intellect and thought professed to be surprised at its occurrence.

The fall in the rate of interest and improved methods of cultivation from now on would rectify that tendency. The margin of cultivation would steadily expand, and every year land which - had gone out of cultivation, and land which till now had not been occupied would be taken up. The State could best help here, with financial assistance to industrious settlers, improved roads and assistance of good farm instructors: