BALLOT FOR CROWN LANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21225, 4 July 1932, Page 13

BALLOT FOR CROWN LANDS.

Sir—lt must bo very gratifying to the department to have had such a number of applications for their recent Orovvn land ballots. I have always understood that the object of these ballots is to give those with small capital an opportunity of going on tp tho land under reasonable conditions and that married men and women with families receive first consideration. The application forms require the applicants to supply certain particulars, and one of these is to this effect: Does wife or husband own any land, and is such insufficient for upkeep of family ? Is it not equally as important that the above should apply to the fathers of those applying, as one of the successful applicants is a single man managing a farm for his father, who probably owns more land than any other person in tho district. Surely out of the 70 that applied for sections in this ballot there would have been at least one married man with reasonable means anxious to obtain honest employment for himself and family who could have managed and worked property equally as well as the single man whoso father has abundance of land and who has been successful ? Would it not bo helping to solve tho unemployment prob lem if married men with families and reasonable capital were given preference? If a repetition of the above takes place it gives little or no encouragement for those with limited capital, whose parents own no freehold, to apply in future ballots. The ballots have been in existence for balf a century or more, and oi'ie would expect that in that time t{io department could rectify such, injustices. Disgusted.