SOLDIER SETTLERS.

Northland Age, Volume 23, Issue 48, 24 March 1924, Page 3

SOLDIER SETTLERS.

At. last the Government has decided to take the bull by the horns, and write off its losses on the soldier settlement scheme, and, incidentally, doing justice to those it settled. The fact of the matter is that most ot the land bought for soldier settlement, was purchased at a price above its economic value. This value can only be got at by valuing the product of the land over a long period containing times of depression as well as times of inflation. The Government bought the land, and put the soldiers on it, at a time when land values were soaring sky high ; and could only stay there by a continuance of the boom conditions prevailing. The conditions have changed, and the price of land has come down very materially. Private people have had to face their losses ; and the Government must follow suit. It has put the soldier settler on the land, and its bounden duty is to see that every one of them who is likely to make good, has the chance to do so. The soldiers were settled on the land as in some way a recompense for their war services, not that they might become rack rented Crown tenants. They must be given a square deal, even if the country has to write off a few millions of the inflated value put on land during the period of their settlement.