Farcical Farms

NZ Truth, Issue 869, 22 July 1922, Page 1

Farcical Farms

"Some Kid" writes: Nowhere is the farcical and foolish system under which the Massey Government settled the returned soldiers on the land more | m evidence than m the middle and j Par North. I brought the mall homo from the bush post office last' Thursday,' and presented each-rthere arj seven of them—of the ex-diggers m this loaallty with Interest demand" which ranged from £100 to £250. The diggers received the little Departmental love letters wlt?i shouts of derision. One of the party unburdened himself and told me of his struggle since the ill-fated day he shoved m his application for a few square yards of God's Own. For seven months the prospective farmer flitted about from farm to farm, inspecting and- interviewing, wasting, valuable time and damaging £100 'beyond repair. At long ii:*f._; slice of Massey'land was dished ou: to him, and he hurried into the backblocks with dungarees, kettle and fry-ing-pan. There was not a shed of any description on his benighted section, although, of course, "the Government had the matter m hand." They still have the matter m hand, but have not yet come across with the whare an.i cow-shed due eighteen months a?o. A. homestead was to be sawn m half between two diggers, so as to adorn their Massey meadows, but the Government, with the glass to its blind-eye, persists that it cannot sight a carpenter who will do the job. The result is that the two dejected diggers have thrown m their unhappy loc together, doomed to inevitablefailnr", , whilo Micawber Massey and his minions wait for something to turn up. The diggers cannot complete their dividing fenco, fpr if the house is shifted the fence will have to be broken down again. Their herds are running together, which prevents 1 the owners from estimating their respective productiveness. In the cowshed they are cramped out of existence and morning and evening the air is heavy with curses. The whole affair, from first .to last, Is a towering monument to misery and muddlement. 'Tho situation shifts into the.realm of folly when U.e L*j\#s Douartroent.re-

gularly sends along Impossible bilU running into hundreds of pounds. Tho returned soldiers up here tell the truth when they say they haven't got the money, and don't intend to pay. They know now, and all New Zealand knows, that the Government, by buying land at sky-high prices, set them a hurdle that would have stopped Spring-heeled Jack. They tried to clear it, but have crashed, and willstay down until the Government helps them up with reasonable revaluation.