SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17140, 21 April 1919, Page 5

SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

SCHEME IN BRITAIN. ] LAND IN THREE CATEGORIES. A. and N.Z. LONDON. April 18. The House of Commons has carried the second reading of the Land Settlement Facilities Bill. Colonel Sir A. Griffith Boscawen, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, in moving the second reading, said the Bill fulfilled the pledge to provide land for exfighters. The Government would ! subsidise £ for £ a man's capital.

The Government had bought about 20,000 acres of small holdings. There, would be three categories, the areas varying from half an acre to 50 acres. I The first category would consist of farm colonies, enabling the holder to gradually increase the size of his small self-supporting plot; the second category would consist of land for cottage holders of three acres for men in employment on the land; the third being for whole time holders of 20 to 30 acres of small mixed or daity farm land and five to 11 acres in fruit or vegetables. Applicants would be given the opportunity, with certain limitations, to purchase seven years at the then value. Equal facilities Would be open to women who had had six months' experience on the land. Several members appealed for permanency of tenure to wartime allotment holders who had grown vegetables in thousands of acres of park and waste land. Sir Newton Moore, formerly Agent-General for Tasmania, urged the establishment of an agricultural bank, which would be more helpful to new settlers than local banks. The Government should advise men who desired to take up land in the Dominions, where large areas were available* j