HOMESTEAD SETTLEMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19416, 26 August 1926, Page 8

HOMESTEAD SETTLEMENTS.

Two reasonn are given by the Minister of Lands for his proposal to emasculate the legislation sanctioning the homestead system of bringing idle lands into .cultivation. Mr. McLeod says that since the legislation was passed in 1919 not a single settler has taken advantage of it, and that in any event its operation would involve a loss of one-half or one-third of the cost. These reasons are neither independently nor in combination sufficient justification for the destruction of a plan which would open opportunities for men of courage and perseverance. There is only one explanation of its apparent' failure. No effort has ever been made to make it a success. Hardly had the legislation been passed than the Government proceeded to spend millions in placing returned soldiers upon fullydeveloped farms at which were obviously recklessly extravagant. How many returned soldiers were told by the Government that it had power to place them on land under license for 10 years, free of all charges; that it could give them liberal advances; and that when the land had been brought into production they would become the owners of the fee simple 1 That Act required that areas for settlement under this scheme should be proclaimed ; that regulations should be made prescribing the terms on which advances would be made to licensees; and that the Government should borrow up to £1,000,000 a year for the purpose of such advances. If the Lands Department has complied with these instructions it has certainly not exerted itself to make the advantages of the scheme widely known, and since no money has ever been set aside for the essential advances, is it any wonder that no applications have been made by settlers 1 By implication the Minister admits that men of "extraordinary energy and perseverance" have been able to establish a comfortable livelihood upon such lands—incidentally without the advantages of free grants of sections or loans from the State—but how can he expect other men of energy and perseverance to follow their example when the Lands Department is too lethargic to give them tho opportunity and the Minister of Lands can offer only counsels of despair? No one would welcome a revival of the reckless prodigality that characterised the discharged soldiers' settlement, but the deliberate opposition of the present Minister of Lands toward all projects for the extension of settlement can only be regarded as an incomprehensibly tragic indifference to the crying need of the Dominion for an expansion of its production by bringing idle lands into use. In the present and previous utterances, M*. McLeod not only says that there is no land that can be profitably cultivated ; he also affirms that neither New Zealanders nor immigrants' are competent to break in new land without' heavy subsidies. Surely someone can be found among; the members of the party with sufficient confidence in his fellow-cOuntrymen and in his country to challenge these heretical doctrines by undertaking the prosecution of a vigorous settlement policy, a responsibility for which Mr. McLeod is obviously unfitted by his hopelessly pessimistic temperament.