LAND SETTLEMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1929, Page 8

LAND SETTLEMENT

•NEED OF CO-OPERATION. “Of all the questions of public interest,” said Mr W. J. Holdswortli, at the first quarterly meting of the Mount Albert Terminus Ratepayers and Residents’ Association at Auckland last week, “there is none more vitally interesting than that of land settlement, in the view of the members of the league, the term “L.S.D.” stood foi “Land Settlement and Development League,” and since it was founded three years ago by Sir Andrew Russell, a prominent Hawke’s Bay farmer, it had made great strides.” Co-operation between 1 the farmer, the business man and the professional man was the idea behind the League, for, with these three working together, the movement would be as strong as a movement could be in New Zealand The aim of the league was to creak an organisation outside the Government, with an advisory board composed of men who had had practical experience. In the Dominion it was a clear-cut issue,' said Mr Holdswortli, arid the need was the development ol those areas at present sterile. Every man who wanted to go on the land should have full opportunity of doing .so, and, further, with the prospect ol making riot a pittance, but a reasonable living. Mr Holdswortli said that the league had, with considerable difficulty, intervieed Mr L. C. M. S. Amcry and Lord Lovett on their visits to New Zealand, and although in the latter case the' interview had been successful, nothing had been done. “These men were the accredited agents of the Government of Great Britain, and were willing, even eager to place millions in the hands of the New Zealand Government, yet nothing was done.” The speaker cited the success that had accompanied the institution of a scheme of land settlement in Canada and West Australia, and said it was nothing short of tragic that young men were brought out to the Dominion ,and then told that there was no chance for them to go on the land. Other Dominions had something definite to ofFer the immigrant in the way of land settlement, and the result was that the best of the immigrants were <*oing not to New Zealand, which had nothing to offer, but to these other places, where they did not merely swell the ranks of the unemployed, but could make a living.

“There is no doubt about it at all,” said Mr Haldsworth in conclusion, “the future prosperity’ of the Dominion lies 'along the highway of close land settlement.”