BACK TO THE LAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 256, 28 September 1932, Page 5

BACK TO THE LAND

AMERICAN PAPER ON NEW ZEALAND. AN ALLEGED INTERVIEW. WELLINGTON, Sept. 28. The attention of the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, was directed to an interview alleged to have been given by Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates and pub.ished in the San Francisco Chronicle on August 30 last, in a question asked by Mr R. Semple in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. Extracts from the interview read as follow : “New Zealand is singing the song of ‘back to the land,’ with so alluring an accompaniment in the clink of cash that thousands of city-bred folks are turning ‘tillers of the soil.’ Twenty thousand single men and 5000 heads of families have turned farmers under the persuasiveness of 1200 dollars from the Government and a tract of land, rent free for five years, with a privilege of leasing it at the end of that time. To make the city folk contented down on the farm, they are provided with houses 'with all modern conveniences, and taken to the pictures twice a week. ‘The plan is putting the deep dint into the depression,’ Mr Coates says, ‘besides taking the pressure off the cities in caring for their needy’.” “Will the Prime Minister take the necessary steps to supply the paper in question with the correct information regarding unemployment and land settlement in New Zealand in order to avoid a possible influx of immigrants from that country?” asked Mr Semple.