SOLDIER SETTLERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17609, 27 October 1931, Page 7

SOLDIER SETTLERS

VAST BURDEN OF DEBTS SUGGESTION THAT £12,000,000 BE WRITTEN OFF MELBOURNE, Oet. 13. Frank criticism of the way in which public money lias been wasted on soldier settlement in Victoria was made by Dr. G. F. Findlay in an address on Problems of Primary Producers, which he 'delivered at the Constitutional Club. . Dr. Finlay, who is an expert consultant on farm and station properties,. said that over £24,000,000 of public money bad been spent on soldier settlement out of £34,000,000 spent on closer settlement generally in Victoria. If the scheme was put on a sound basis whereby the settlebs would receive at least a basic wage, and the taxpayers would receive interest on their money, it would be necessary .to write off nearly £ 12,000,000, or approximately half the amount spent on soldier settlement. Ho believed that official Government inquiries and statements about putting settlement on a “sound basis” were nothing more or less than humbug. There .was a good deal of talk about home maintenance areas, but if the State was to really grant homemaintenance areas it would mean that the taxpayers of Victoria would be saddled with a burden of taxation which would be unbearable in view of. the huge increases already made in taxation. He had no hesitation in saying that soldier settlers were the victims of gross official maladministration. He had visited groups of settlers in different parts of Victoria to investigate their positions, and he had found that a very large proportion would not receive one penny for their labor if they paid the interest on advances made to them.

Australian settlers were in a bad enough condition, but the immigrant settlers who had been induced to settle on the land and had lost all their capital were in an even worse state. Both Australian and British settlers had built up such a burden of debt that most of them would be unable to repay it. The press had pointed out that on an average every soldier settler was being maintained by the State at the rate of £3 per week. The investigations lie had made tended to confirm this calculation. It was surely time that a change_ was made in the administration of these vast public “disasters.” Those responsible for a large part of the administration of settlement in Victoria since the war had evidently lacked competence in the business and technical aspects of agriculture. NEED FOR BETTER PRICES Speaking on the prospects of primary producers generally, Dr. Finlay said that the great majority of small graziers -and wheat farmers throughout Australia would lose their equity, in their properties unless better prices were obtainable for their products, or unless they were able to considerably reduce their costs of production. We would probably soon see a large number of primary producers carrying on as managers for the mortgagors—the banks and other institutions —and in that position it was obvious that they would not give the same attention to the properties, with the result that production would decrease. Although the dairying industry was now in a better position than the wheat or wool industries, as dairy farmers were receiving relatively higher prices, this state of affairs was unlikely to continue, because European countries were about to follow the example already set by Holland and Denmark and go in for more extensive and intensive dairying.