LAND AND LABOUR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXX, Issue 15042, 9 July 1909, Page 6

LAND AND LABOUR.

The unemployed trouble, deplorable ns it is, will not have been without its uses if it should move the Government to provide some means by which those workers who are inclined to rro on to tho hind can escape from an overcrowded labour market. Sir Joseph Ward seems to have recognised the soundness of tho scheme we have been urging for years past by offering the retrenched Civil servants small farms on specially favourable terms, but we cannot understand why Civil servants who havelost their positions should bo treated with greater consideration than still more unfortunate people who are unable to- obtainjivork. The average Civil servant is no more promising material for the manufacture of a farmer than is the average applicant for employment at the labour bureau, and while we would not deny the Civil servant tho opportunity to make his way on the soil wo certainly would give the samo opportunity to every decent man who showed any aptitude at all for rural occupations. Wo hope from the statement which tho Minister of Lands has made to the " Nov,- Zealand Times" that he is new prepared to go (■onto distance with us in this direction. The Improved Farms Settlement Act gives the Lands for Settlement Department authority to advance to the settler up to £l5O for building a dwelling and clearing his section, and with this assistance, supplemented, perhaps, by the wages ho could earn on the public works that would bo necessary to give access to his selection, many a man who is now walking tho streets of Christ-church in idleness could establish himself on the land. The life would be hard, of course, to begin with, and in spite of every possible precaution there would bo a proportion of failures, but wo aro satisfied that there aro hundreds of men in tho ranks of the unemployed who would do well on tho land if they were given a reasonable chance. Wo notice that Mr Buddo expects to make provision soon for three hundred men under tfio Improved Farms Settlement Act, and wo should like to suggest to him that be should give gpeciid .consideration to tho men who havo been employed on the Waipara-Bleiiheim railway works, nnd who havo nowreached tho end of their contracts. These men havo shown themselves capable of bearing a little hardship nnd havo acquired some experience of country life, which would bo very useful to them in their new occupation. If the Minister would commission Mr J. E. March, a gentleman who did more while ho was in the puhlic service than any other person in the dominion to encourage and organise close settlement, to select the men to occupy his improved farms we should look with some confidence for a satisfactory conclusion to his well-intentioned efforts.