LAND SALES ACT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 29 September 1943, Page 4

LAND SALES ACT

EVIDENT EFFECT ON ELECTION VOTING IN COUNTRY SEATS Wellington, Sept. 28. The results of the election show clearly that the farming community has registered a most emphatic protest against the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act,” said Mr Walter Horrobin, Dominion treasurer of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, to-day. “There is not one rural electorate in the Dominion where the Government has been given any real support by the farmers. “As the majority of farmers to-day are returned men of 1914-18, it is also an indication of what these men think of the Government’s action in making use of the title ‘Servicemen’s Settlement’ in an act designed to take away from returned soldiers the protection they had under the Lands for Settlement Act. The loss of his seat by the Minister of Agriculture in so decided a fashion is a sacrifice which Mr Barclay has been made to offer on the altar of sectional interests, and can be largely set down to the passing of the Land Sales Act. “The Prime Minister must now decide whether he is going to govern the country in accordance with the wishes only of the Labour Party, or whether he will govern it in accordance with the interests of the country as a whole. If Mr Fraser desires to obtain the whole-hearted co-opera-tion of all sections of the community, then he cannot ignore the indications given by the poll. “In these circumstances it is to be hoped and expected that the Government will consult representatives of the farming community and will endeavour to get an agreement with them, particularly with a view to bringing forward a servicemen’s settlement act and a land sales act. both acts designed to enable New Zealand to make the finest possible job of enabling her returned men to go on the land. Such action would go a long way towards giving farmers some encouragement in the strenuous efforts which they are making to arrest the decline in production. It would glso go a long way towards restoring the co-operation which has long been lacking between the farming community and the Government, but which is urgently necessary for the most efficient prosecution of New Zealand’s part in the war.” FARMERS UNWILLING ( TO ACT ON COMMITTEE Auckland, Sept. 28. Subject to the approval of the Dominion executive of the Farmers’ Union, the Auckland provincial executive of the union has decided to urge members in the province not to sit as members of any court or committee under the Land Sales Act. This decision was made at the last meeting in September 15, but public announcement was deferred till after the general election. Members of the executive who had been in Wellington recently reported to the meeting that the Dominion president, Mr W. W. Mulholland, had made a request that the Farmers’ Union should take no part in implementing the Land Sales Act.—-P.A.