LAND PROBLEMS

Southland Times, Issue 20013, 29 October 1926, Page 8

LAND PROBLEMS

MINISTER INTERVIEWED DIFFICULTIES OF SMALL HOLDERS WHO IS TO BLAME? (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, October 28. In Auckland recently the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister for Lands, referred to the settlement of unoccupied Crown Lands and made a statement to the effect that he would be prepared to hand over to any association at bare survey costs an area of from 10,000 to 15,000 acres of gum or pumice lands and that, provided it sub-divided the land successfully into small farms, he would be prepare to recommend Cabinet to provide a subsidy of 25 per cent. When asked to-day whether he had anything to add to this statement, the Minister said that the offer still held good and that if any reputable set of men come forward he would ask Parliament to pass the necessary legislation to make the conditions binding on all parties. He fully recognised the responsibility attached to such an offer but he never made offers wtihout first malting himself conversant with all the facts of the case. “In certain political circles an effort is being made to lay at the door of the party with which I am associated all the ills which have fallen upon the man on the land during recent years,” he said. “This may be fair party politics but if one wished to retaliate in kind it would not be hard to show that a great majority of those on deteriorated lands now applying for a deductions of rent and financial assistance were settled upon their holdings by Government in power prior to 1912, and left in all too many cases without roads or bridges of any kind. Furthermore, larger percentages are original settlers who did not take land up at the inflated prices ruling during the war period.” After dealing fully with the question of unoccupied Crown Lands and lands under cultivation, Mr McLeod said, “Let me say that after moving about the country as I do, I am much more concerned about the condition of much of our occupied land than lam about unoccupied lands. The enormous increase of costings, compared with the relatively small increase in the nett overseas values of our primary products. Is undoubtedly forcing much land out of profitable occupation and this is a much more serious Dominion problem than the bringing in of the relatively few remaining of unoccupied Crown lands.”