LAND SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18763, 17 July 1924, Page 8

LAND SETTLEMENT.

The new Minister for Lands, Mr. McLeod, has been heard in defence of the Government on its lack of a settlement policy. His performance was not impressive, largely because all the possible excuses have already been used, and none of them is sustainable. His main point was that in the present Condition of values it would be unwise to hasten the selection of land suitable for closer j settlement. Evidently he has not begun to face the question of bringing into production the idle waste lands of the Dominion which as yet have no real capital value. It remains to be created. Could there be a time more suitable than the present? The prices of produce are high. There is unemployment throughout the Empire. The land hunger exists; the land is here. The duty of,the Government is to find a way to utilise those conditions. But apparently Mr. McLeod has never heard of the Empire Settlement Scheme. It is more than two years old, several Australian Governments have taken advantage of it, but New Zealand has got no further on the subject than the open, and seemingly vacant, mind which is ready to give " full consideration" when the plan has been brought officially to the Government's attention. Nor is Mr. McLeod hopeful of the future. He gives the impression that there is no land available for settlement. Happily the country knows that this is not so. Were the outlook no brighter than Mr. McLeod pictures it then the immense Bchemes of public expenditure to which New Zealand is committed would be unsound, for they have been planned with an eye to a greatly increased population to find interest, and a return of capital outlay. Unless the settlement problem is seriously attacked, the population will not expand, allowing the burden to be more widely spread. The mistakes made over soldier settlement furnish no reason for the complete cessation of land settlement now.

The Minister trie? to make a case excusing what was then done. He says no Government could have resisted the pressure brought to bear. Why not? Is a Government always to respond to public demands, right or wrong ? Has it not some obligation to shape public opinion, instead of bowing to it always? In any event, the Government was seriously and repeatedly warned of the folly of its methods. Had it listened to the sound advice tendered, made the soldier settlement scheme a means of bringing idle land into production, given precedence to men of experience, and refrained from paying cash in full if it did purchase, the costly mistakes made could have been avoided. It is too late to retrace those steps now; but there might at least be some effort to apply in a positive manner the lessons learned, instead of adopting the negative course defended by the Minister, standing supine and doing nothing at all.