SOLDIER-SETTLERS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11255, 6 July 1922, Page 6

SOLDIER-SETTLERS

FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES PROSPECT OF SUBSTANTIAL RELIEF. STATES MINISTER FOR LANDS. What steps, if any, had the Government taken to relieve the present financial position of the returned soldiers holding land under the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Act? was a question put in Parliament yesterday to the -M inister for Lands by Mr W. S. Glenn (Rangitikei). MINISTER’S REPLY. IMPORTANT PROPOSALS: “We all know perfectly well,” said the Hon. D. H. Guthrie, in reply, “that the discharged soldiers, together with all the farmers in the country, have been passing through parlous times. The Government has done, and will do, what it can to help them, but the Government has the responsibility, not only of dealing with the position of returned soldiers, but with the position and the finances of the country as a whole. “While, therefore, the Government is quite willing and ready and anxious to do everything possible to help returned soldiers through these financial straits, we cannot go further than we deem right in the interests of the country at large.” So far as the Government was concerned, he wanted to announce that the matter had been under serious consideration for a considerable time past; and, as Minister for Lands, he was quite prepared to come down with proposals that would make a substantial reduction in the financial difficulties of the soldiera at the present time But he could not announce the policy in regard to returned soldiers yet, as it had not been decided on by Cabinet. He had the whole thing in train, however, and it would be brought before Cabinet, which would have an opportunity of saying whether the proposals he made were such as it could approve of. He felt perfectly certain that the result of putting before Cabinet these proposals would he that they would meet with Cabinet approval, and he would be able to announce, probably in a very short time, that proposals had been adopted that would relievo the soldiers, to a large extent, of the difficulties in which they were placed.