LAND SETTLEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20560, 10 May 1930, Page 14

LAND SETTLEMENT.

Sir, —Every clay one reads something about tho unemployed problem and land ! settlement. Mr. Forbes, Minister of | Lands, tells us that in stumping the wattles and clearing tho land at Itangij riri he was relieving unemployment and I bringing the land into cultivation. I may I ho wrong, but personally I would not like to stump and clear that land ready j for the plough for £ls per aero. Certainly the posts, rails and firewood cut | may lie sold and rctluco <ho cost, but | (hero is still-ploughing to do, cultivating, I sowing, manuring, house, sheds, fencing i and stocking. After that lot it would I have to carry a cow and a-half to the i acre to bo a payable proposition. Some j time; ago, by request of tho New Zealand Share-milkers' Association, I forwarded a copy of a schemo of group settlement to the various heads of tho Government. The reply received was that the scheme had much to commend it, but that, legislation had already dealt | with land settlement, and nothing'further i would be done until next session, or to ; that effect. Perhaps, after all, it is wrong j to criticiso tho work being done at llangi j riri adversely, for at least it is relieving j the strain of unemployment in tho citv I and possibly preparing tho land to grow | a blade of grass where ono has not , hitherto grown. What has urged me to I write is that I find unemployment is not | confined to tho cities. I have met men hardly knowing where their next meal is I coming from, who. if thev got work could. not move their household belon-! ings because of the cost. These families u given the opportunity, would help toward tho future prosperity of our Dominion. ihe Government could put them on to break in, say, 100 acres ouch, and if the group system was employed, put 60 of the 100 acres in grass, manure, rin<rfence, stock, say, 25 rows and a livable cottage, sheds, separator, implements and farm tools at a cost not more than £ls ! per acre, provided the upset price of the | land did not exceed 20s an acre. In three years' time these people would be j independent. Tho Government would have ample security for their money in tho j country's increased export. The' £ls per acre would include a living wage to these families for three years. I will find 50 families with good records as farmers whose integrity cannot he doubted, who urn almost in a state of despair as to how they are going to get through the winter. Tho Kerepeehi block just balloted foi will not offer much relief to the man who could not even" put a ring-fence round his section without financial assistance. A.J.G.S. Paeroa.