SUNDAY ISLAND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 160, 8 June 1937, Page 9

SUNDAY ISLAND

SETTLEMENT SCHEME. REPLY TO MINISTER. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 7. Exception to advice offered by ' the Minister of Lands (Hon. F. Langstone) discouraging any persons from investing in a scheme for the settlement ot Sunday Island was taken by Mr A. L. Denniston, Auckland, honorary secretary of the Ivermadec Development Syndicate. He criticised Mr Liangstone lor making a statement before he had invited full particulars from those responsible for the scheme, and said the Minister’s facts were far from correct.

“In the first place,” said Mr Denniston, “the sum of £4O is not only for the purchase of land and a free passage to the island for every settler, but there will also be a very large sum which will be used for installing a water supply, generating electricity and building a small hospital with all medical stores. A qualified surgical nurse and dentist are accompanying the settlers. There will be a small schoolroom, since a retired scliolomaster is to be a settler, a community store and a wireless outfit capable of sending and receiving. This is quite apart, too, from the more than probable fact that Pan-American Airways will be installing a meteorological station on the island. “If an epidemic broke out, a wireless message to me in Auckland would very soon have a doctor in a boat off to treat settlers with all drugs and other necessities. This would not be at the expense of the New Zealand Government. Indeed, one •distinct and often-expressed hope has been that the Government will not unnecessarily interfere with settlers who have sufficient money to carry on without such help. . “With regard to communication with the island, the committee in charge has tentatively arranged for a permanent charter of a large auxiliary schooner which will make regular trips and which, by means of overhead gear, can be loaded and unloaded in all weathers when required. This disposes of the bugbear connected with landing facilities. “The Minister states that presumably the syndicate will arrange for the necessary survey. Is it at all likely that such an important matter should have been overlooked ? He need not have presumed; he could have ascertained this and other facts by the simple process of making inquiries. For Mr Langstone’s edification, I may state that a licensed, duly qualified and registered surveyor' will subdivide the block as' soon as the committee requires it. Furthermore, the land (is already under the Land Transfer , Act, which will give to each settler a New Zealand Government guaranteed title to ownership. “It may also be of interest to the public to know,” said Mr Denniston, “that fruits and other produce can be placed on the New Zealand market in their respective seasons earlier than from any other country supplying New Zealand. In addition, oranges, lemons, grape fruit, passionfruit, paw paws, rock melons, taros, ■kumaras, hops, and so on, will lie in supply when local markets are bare, and as freight will be less than it will’be from islands farther away, so therefore will the cost to the consumer “It would bo interesting to know who gave this unsatisfactory mforma- , tion to the Minister. I suspect that it came from someone whom we con- ■ sidered would be an unsatisfactory settler, and I have had a great many such, or from one who knew the island before the days when electricity, machinery, and up-to-date science were used commercially. “I repeat that the Minister made a g ra ve 1)1 under wlien lie did not deem it necessarv or worth while to ascertain these and many other facts before making a critical statement which, as it stands, is such a misleading warning.”