LAND SETTLEMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21862, 26 July 1934, Page 12

LAND SETTLEMENT

IMMIGRATION SCHEME ROTARIANS RECOGNISE NEED VIEWS ON MR. BRYANT'S PLAN The need for some scheme of immigration in co-opcration with Great Britain as a means of utilising to a greater extent the land of New Zealand was urged by the majority of the speakers at a meeting of tho Auckland Rotary Club held last night to discuss with Mr. D. V. Bryant, of Hamilton, his scheme for land settlement. A committee was set up to confer at an early date with Mr. Bryant and Mr. H. Valder, of Hamilton, on the details of tho proposed scheme. Forty Rotarians attended the meeting, including scvon members of the Hamilton club. Mr. G. L. Taylor presided. Mr. Bryant's scheme is designed to increase the population of New Zealand with young Englishmen of the right type, and at the same time bring into productive capacity the vast areas of partially developed land in the Dominion. The scheme is to be financed by a fund of £10,000,000 to be raised in Britain by way of giftß. Mr. Bryant is well known as the founder of tho Waikato Land Development Society.

In putting forward his scheme Mr. Bryant said he was not a philanthropist, but a business man. He appealed to his audience to regard the question in the light of humanity, and not from a material point of view. The majority of members had to realise that they had only a few years to live, in the time that was left ho urged them to set aside the accumulation of wealth and work in the interests of others. Mr. Bryant anticipated no difficulty in procuring the £10,000,000 in Great Britain, where people possessing surplus accumulated wealth would be approached. The most difficult part of the scheme would be its establishment In the Dominion. New Zealand, he considered, was greatly under-populated. Mr. Bryant said the scheme provided for the setting up of some organisation in England. Byi a careful choice of men there would be no inflation in land prices. It was his firm opinion that immigration would absorb rather than increase unemployment.

While approving of the adoption of a scheme of land development, Mr. Clutha Mackenzie considered one could lie placed in operation and run on a sound commercial basis by the borrowing of money in Britain at a very low rate of interest.

The view taken by Mr. G. Park was that the time was an ideal one for the inauguration of a scheme and that a practical proposition would gain support in Britain. Other speakers, including Sir Joseph Smith, Sir George Fowlds, and Messrs. W. J. Holdsworth, N. G. Gribble, D. Hay, D. Henry, H. Yalder and H. Gilbert, urged the need for land settlement. Some held the view that the £10,000,000 should be kept in the background, the essentials being the development of the idea that the land was for use, and after that the propounding of some schenie.

The committee appointed to confer with Mr. Bryant and Mr. Valder is as follows:—The president of the club (ex-officio), Sir Joseph Smith, and Messrs. W. J. Holdsworth, R. Laidlaw, Clutha Mackenzie, D. Henry and 1). Allen.