SETTLEMENT OF LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20203, 13 March 1929, Page 13

SETTLEMENT OF LAND.

VIGOROUS POLICY URGED.

OPENING UP NEW AREAS

CHECKING DRIFT TO CITIES. [BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The conference on land settlement and migration problems, organised by the New Zealand Land Settlement and Development League, of Auckland, and the Dominion Settlement Association, of Wellington, was opened to-day. Mr. A. L. Hunt presided. ' Mr. Hunt urged that there should be a vigorous policy of developing and settling new land in the Dominion. He said he utterly disagreed with the statement frequently made during the past few years, even by responsible Ministers of the Crown, that all the land worth settling had been taken up. He also said that millions of horse-power were running to waste that might be harnessed up privatelv, in addition to Government hydroelectric undertakings, and ho utilised for manufacturing purposes. There must be something wrong when, in a country of the great latent possibilities of New Zealand, they had a chronic labour problem, and could not absorb British immigrants. An Unhealthy Sign. Referring to the question of boys and the land, Mr. Hunt said: " Have we any city lads to-day who are keen to get on the land?— No. Do we find the farmers son striving to follow in his father s footsteps?— No." Mr. Hunt continued that although he was only a small business man in Wellington ho was pestered by farmers' sons writing to him for work in the city. A Delegate: It is an unhealthy sign. Mr. Hunt: Yes. There is something radically wrong.

After referring to what is being accomplished in Western Australia, Mr. Gribble, secretary of tho Auckland Land Settlement League, endorsed Mr. Hunt'* statement as to tho urgent need of an immigration and land settlement, board.

Mr. H. G. Dickie, M.P., said he was quite satisfied that any intelligent boy could make money on the land. No amount of higher education would give the boys a bins toward the land. It would give them a bias the other way. In his opinion the Arbitration Court was doing more than anything else to divorce the boys from the land. Theory and Practice. Mr. A. W. Chapman (Waikato) said the trouble to-day was that young men were coming out from England who could lose the average New Zealand farmer at chemistry, but who knew little about practical farming. Mr. Dickie said he was strongly in favour of what he termed apprenticing boys to the land. "You can build as many Massey colleges as you like, but you won't produce farmers, ' he declared. "It would have been wiser to have established a central research station, instead of a college of university grade." Mr. Chapman: Is Massey College anything else but a research station ? Mr. Dickie: Wo aro spending too much •money oil it. Mr. M. J. Corrigan (Waimate) said that the drift to the towns could only be stopped by making city life less attractive. When young men could earn 14s a day on relief work in the towns they were not going out into the country to drive a team for £2 a week. After further discussion the following resolutions were passed:— That the land settlement policy of tho future should be confined largely to opening up new lands at present bringing in no revenue.

That, in addition to Government effort, private enterprise be given every encouragement and facility, including the removal of land tax, to undertake the breaking in of second-class lands for the purpose of making them available for close settlement.

That, in the opinion of this conference, the time lias arrived for a national movement to place land settlement on a sound basis.

Tho conference approved of the policy of the Minister of Education that primary education be given a bias toward agriculture and expressed tJie opinion that boys should complete their training in the service of a practical farmer. The conference adjourned until to-mor-row afternoon.