LAND SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20465, 17 January 1930, Page 14

LAND SETTLEMENT.

Sir,—The leader in Thursday's Herald dealing with the number of people employed in farming is instructive, but that all is not well with settlement in this Dominion you would doubtless gladly ad> mit. The time appears opportune fo" drawing attention to the danger of losing sight of the fact that the settlement of land and the utilisation of our great natural resources is the road to national security. This is all the more desirable since at the moment we have the spectacle of the dominant political party treat, ing this very subject as the bone of contention in their internal dissensions. The spending of millions in relief works and palliatives will afford the most temporary respite and shortly we shall be faced with a depleted Treasury, increased taxation and 20,000 workless men who. with insignificant exceptions, prefer work to sloth. It would appear that we have spent already perhaps 50 per cent, more on public works than is essential (from an economic production standpoint) to a population of 1£ millions. While we in New Zealand are wasting time, other countries are consolidating their positions and putting increased quantities of produce on the world's markets. To do this land and men are necessary. To-day Europe is "land-hungry," and America and Australia and Africa are "man-hungry." We in New Zealand, with one-quarter of our available land under cultivation and over 40,000,000 acres untouched, appear to bo content to allow things to drift. N. G. Gribble.