SOLDIER FARMERS

Southland Times, Issue 19460, 27 January 1925, Page 5

SOLDIER FARMERS

THE GOVERNMENT’S PART. STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER. WORTHY RECORD UNFOLDED. (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, January 26. Complete figures covering the Government’s work in repatriation of soldiers and revaluation of soldiers’ land were given by Hon. A. D. McLeod (Minister for Lands) at Thames to-day. The figures cover operations to the end of 1924. THE ADVANCES. The Minister said that under the Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Act, advances for purchase of stock'and for improvements totalled £4,604,266, advances to assist soldiers to acquire rural holdings and discharging mortgages totalled £8,932,796; and advances for the purchase and erection of town dwellings totalled £8,595,517. Under Land for Settlement Act, the capital value of estates purchased for discharged soldiers’ settlements was £5,950,000, while under the Repatriation Act loans for businesses, furniture, tools and employment sustenance totalled £2,366,480. The total sum involved was £30,449,061. THE REVALUATIONS. Dealing with revaluation, the Minister said that applications for revaluations numbered 5347, and of that number final determinations had been made in 4467 cases, or 83 per cent. Reductions, recommended and adopted in 4272 cases, were as follows: on the capital value of leaseholds £1,225,615 and on mortgages £531,672. The Revaluations Board, continued the Minister, had negotiated with private mortgagees and unsecured creditors for the purpose of having debts discharged or reduced to afford soldiers relief. The total amounts owing by soldiers so affected was £95,587 and reductions amounting to £62,820 had been secured. The Board had completed negotiations for the purchase of private mortgages amounting to £23,504. These had been purchased at a discount of £10,756, or for the actual sum of £12,768. Seventeen of the 28 committees had finished their work and it was hoped the final winding-up of the scheme would be completed by March 31. ACTIVITY OF LANDS DEPARTMENT. “The Lands Department,” said Mr McLeod, “is now a huge commercial concern and not a simple Survey Department as formerly. The work thrown on the Department has quadrupled, and I am quite sure that Parliament and the people have not realised this, while in many directions the Department is understaffed. Governments are like individuals: they make mistakes, but after a close investigation, I think the cost of our repatriation will be cheaper than in any other dominion of the Empire. This has been done without making our returned soldiers loafers and wasters. We have kept the men at work and they have not lounged about the street corners and halls asking what is being done for them.” SOLDIERS’ BETTER POSITION. With regard to the valuations, the Minister said that he was not afraid to justify every step the Government had taken. The soldier to-day was standing five, fifteen and twenty times better than his civilian neighbour across the fence. There was a tendency on the part of some soldier farmers, however, to persist in making the trouble a political one, rather than a farming one. If that attitude were continued, the men would lose the sympathy of those who had supported them.