PUNI SOLDIER SETTLERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 14

PUNI SOLDIER SETTLERS.

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE.

REMISSION OF RENTS SOUGHT,

[BY TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL REPORTER.] PUKEKOHE, Tuesday.

"We came here with our gratuity ancl an axe," said a member of a deputation representing the Puni soldier settlers, which waited on, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, Minister of Lands and Agriculture, to-day. Assistance was asked in the direction of having arrears of rents remitted, it being alleged by the men that they had a good claim for consideration. There were about ten soldier farmers on the settlement, which was established about 1926, and is close to Pukekohe. Some assistance has been given the men in the past in the direction of remissions and revaluations and a regrouping of the sections, which average about 70 acres. Each was effected in 1927. The commissioner of Crown lands for North Auckland, Mr. Owen Campbell, advised the> settlers that their proper course was to submit to the Land Board a statement showing their receipts and expenditure, which would enable a thorough. examination to be made into each claim for remission of arrears. The Minister endorsed that advice and promised, in addition, to represent to the Minister of Public Works the need for metalling the two miles of road which gives access to the settlement.-