ROTORUA-TAUPO RAILWAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19986, 30 June 1928, Page 14

ROTORUA-TAUPO RAILWAY.

Sir, —I claim to know fairly intimately the greater part of the country through which the above railway will run, and I am confident that •if the construction of this line is carried on in conjunction'with an active policy of land settlement framed to assist the small farmer and to encourage farm production, it will prove of immense benefit to the Dominion as a whole and to Auckland in particular. The Crown owns several hundred thousand acres on the route of the line, much of which is easily ploughable, and can be cheaply put into pasture or crop, consequently there is room for a very large number of new settlers. In fact, there is scope in this part of New Zealand not only for .all the men we have at a loose end no\Vj who would like to become farmers, but also for a large number of immigrant farmers. When I \j-as in Rotorua some time ago I met one of the delegates of the Imperial Overseas Settlement League, who had visited some of the settlers about that place, and he assured me that if the New Zealand Government would offer such lands at a low price he could find hundreds of men in the Old Country who, backed by the Imperial Government and by their own capital, would take up such land and have money enough to work it. Mr. Coates has already hinted at some new form of land policy, and with the present good price of farm products it only needs a little encouragement not only to induce many of our own men to take up the grand old occupation of farming, but to encourage once more the immigration of men from overseas to settle on the idle lands of the Dominion. What Aucklanders should do now, instead of carping and criticising this projected railway in a pessimistic manner, is to put their influence and even their capital to work to make it a great success. The development of the pumice lands will mean a great stimulus to the trade of Auckland, and every new primary producer means a help in the reduction of our financial burdens. Let Aucklanders be bold in the development of their idle territory. Experience has shown that with the magnificent climate they enjoy, and modern methods, every, class of land they have cart be made productive, and the pumice lands especially so. If they unite and help the Government to once more turn the tide of labour from the cities toward the land and to give the land worker full opportunity to make a good living, they will do a great thing for their province and for themselves. Aucklandeb.