DISABLED SOLDIERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20867, 6 November 1929, Page 8

DISABLED SOLDIERS.

LAND SETTLEMENT PROBLEMS. EVIDENCE BEFORE COMMISSION. (Per United Peesj Association.) "WELLINGTON, November 5, t The commission appointed to inquire into the condition and circumstances of physically and economically incapacitated soldiers opened its Wellington sitting to-day.

John Henry O’Donnell, controller of accounts _ in the Lands Survey. Department, said that, unfortunately, a number of the soldier settlers were inexperienced and physically unfit to carry on farming on a large scale, and before deterioration of the properties set in it became necessary to realise. He considered that the land purchased should be of the best quality and in the vicinity of large centres of population. The department was meeting with some success with the settlement of selected men on'small areas, of which the purchase was arranged privately with Government finance. Out of 722 men settled or assisted on small farms there were 179 failures, or 24.8 per cent. The largest percentage of failures had been in poultry farming. 37,8 per cent.; small fruit farming, 19.2 per -cent.; market gardening, 13 per cent.