LAND POLICY WANTED

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4813, 21 July 1939, Page 5

LAND POLICY WANTED

STOPPING THE DRIFT TO TOWNS. DEFERRED PAYMENT PLAN. PROBLEM OF HOUSING. "What I think is wanted is a land policy and I want to make it plain that we have not had one for over 35 years whereby a young man with very little could get on the land," said Mr. W. J. Bryne, chairman of directors of the Tariki Co-operative Dairy Company, discussing the drift of young people to the towns at the annual meeting of shareholders of the company.

"The trend of the young people seems to be to drift into the towns, where the hours are shorter and they have more time to enjoy themselves, and the prospects are just as good from their point of view as working en a farm with no prospect of ever owning one themselves," said Mr. Bryne.

"I think that, if good unimproved land was made available under the old deferred payment system at a nominal rental, allowing so much for his improvements, a lot of farm workers and farmers' sons with limited capital would be only too glad to follow the best and healthiest occupation in the world where every man's own home is his castle."

One of the biggest difficulties was the housing problem, considered Mr. W. V. Harkness. Hard cash had to be found to build a new house. Between £6OO and £7OO were needed and it was hard to find. If the Government built some houses in the country instead of building so many in the towns it might be better for New Zealand, he said.

A big factor, in the opinion of Mr. J. E. Pettit, was that the young men of- to-day were given secondary education in the wrong dh'ection. "Nine out of ten boys who leave school to go farming are farmers, but nine out of ten of the boys who go to high school do not become farmers," he said.