LAND DEVELOPMENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 30 June 1943, Page 3

LAND DEVELOPMENT

COMMITTEE’S REPORT LARGE BLOCKS CONSIDERED BEST (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. It seemed far preferable to develop land in large. blocks and write of! any cost in excess of productive value than to give an individual a lifelong task in breaking in a farm from the raw.. This is one of the conclusions on land settlement contained in a report of the Land Development Committee, which w'as discussed in the House of Representatives yesterday, and referred to the Government for consideration. The interim report of the committee which was set up to consider the best means of bringing back into production or of developing deteriorated or marginal lands, dealt with the North Island land, the war situation having caused the committee to postpone investigations into South Island blocks. Prior development of the land by the State had everything to commend it and if a settler were established on a fully developed farm and farmed it in accordance with the established rules of husbandry for the district he had only to look to his own personal efforts to be successful, added the report, which contended that the time was ripe for a comprehensive survey of the whole Dominion to classify all land for the purpose of assessing its utility value. Areas unsuitable for development should be set aside for whatever purpose they were most suited and development confined only to those areas which could be successfully grassed and maintained. Each particular type of land should be used according to its real value HUGE SUCCESS CLAIMED During a lengthy discussion. the Acting-Minister of Lands, Mr J. G. Barclay, gave returns from all developed land blocks in the North Island, when claiming that the development scheme had proved a huge success. In 1941-42, gross profits from those blocks totalled £278,054, and this year they amounted to £378,072, an increase of £IOO.OOO in gross revenue. Since the inception of the scheme in 1929, capital expenditure had been £2,400,000, and subsidies totalled £980,000, an aggregate of £3,380,000. Country which reverted most rapidly should be planted with suitable exotic trees and the balance of sunnier country used for farming, suggested Mr W. J. Poison (Nat., Stratford). Apart from the fact that there was a growing demand for timber and for the manufacture of boxes of all descriptions, a farmer with a plantation which would be ready for utilisation in 30 years or so might obtain advances from the State for development of land he was using for farming. Mr Poison also advocated the use of pinus insignis for building houses. After wide investigations, he had had a house built from that wood eight or ten years ago, and there was no sign of borer in it. He found that in various parts of New Zealand, there were pinus insignis houses which had been up for 50 years.

Mr Morgan Williams ("Government, Kaiapoi) : I have had a pinus insignis house for 30 years.