The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1923. FULFILLING A PROMISE

Southland Times, Issue 18974, 22 June 1923, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1923. FULFILLING A PROMISE

When a political opponent has announced that he will carry some particular legislation into effect, it is good party tactics to twit him with delay when the time has arrived for taking the actual steps to satisfy the earlier announcement. Something of this sort has been done in connection with Mr Parr’s statement during the dreary Address-in-Reply debate that the Government would bring down legislation to deal with matters arising from the situation of , soldier settlers on the land. When the Government set up enquiry boards to discover the actual position and to secure information to make a comprehensive scheme of relief possible, the Liberal press and many of the Liberal politicians hailed this step as an attempt to shelve the whole question or to shelter behind private people. We were asked to contemplate the awful fate of soldier settlers whom the Government had put on to land at high prices, and had then cruelly abandoned, so that their properties would ultimately fall back into the hands of the men from whom the land had been purchased. The charge against the Government was one of filling the pockets of its friends with the State’s money and of deserting the victims of this particu'.ar piece of robbery. Allegations of this kind may be thrown about recklessly in politics, and particularly when there is an election handy, but they require further political histrionics as a smoke screen when the hollowness of them has been revealed. We were told that Mr Wilford would hold up the House and prevent Mr Massey from going to the Imperial Conference until he had produced legislation to save the soldiers, when all the while it was known that the enquiries being conducted for the Government were preparatory for legislation, which was absolutely necessary to enable the Government to deal with the soldier settlers requiring re-valuations and other assistance. Now that Mr Parr has given a hint of the proximity of the bill, his remarks are received as a revelation of tremendous importance, showing that the Government has been compelled to face revaluation. It will not be long before we will be told that, this piece of legislation was the immediate result of Mr Wilford’s terrific exertions. This is all part of the party game, and sometimes innocent electors are caught by it. Mr Parr quite frankly admitted that the Government would have to take a share of the responsibility for the purchase of land during the boom period, but it is sheer nonsense to suggest that at that time it. could have acted as its critics now argue. A good deal of the land taken up by the soldiers was selected by them, and they went to the Land Boards with the proposals for sale and purchase set out. In some cases the Land Boards objected to certain deals, and more often than not this was seized on by the critics as evidence of the Government’s desire to shirk its responsibilities. The prices during the period of soldier settlement were high because the prices for the products of the land were high, and because there was cheap money available. In one or two cases the sums paid for land may have been unduly high because the property was not suited to soldier settlement, but in the main the Government could not have taken up land at pre-war prices, as has been suggested, without inflicting a monstrous injustice on a section of the community. The State is not entitled to compel any man to sell his property to the State at less than its market value, and the market value of the propertv is moje often than not, determined

by circumstances over which the Government of the day has no control. Now that the boards of enquiry have furnished the Government with information regarding the position of the soldier settlers, we may expect a comprehensive scheme for relief and the remission of rents and the loss through the reductions of valuation will be distributed over the whole community. One thing is certain: the people of New Zealand want to see a fair thing done by the soldiers, and if it takes the whole of the money raised for the purpose of putting these men on the land, the country will still be in their debt.