Closer Settlement To be Pushed On

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 673, 27 May 1929, Page 14

Closer Settlement To be Pushed On

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY UNEMPLOYMENT SOLUTION Press Association BLENHEIM, Today. A determination to push on the j cutting up of estates and the ! settlement of many small farmers ] was expressed by the Prime Min- j ister, Sir Joseph Ward, in return- I ing thanks for the civic reception j given him here today. After thanking the Mayor and J people lor their -welcome, Sir Joseph referred to the settlement of land by opening up the country to small farmers. "We shall settle the unemployment problem,” he said. “In the last seven years the number of people on the land has decreased by 15,000. These people are now In the towns, and this has given rise to our unemployment problem. The only way of providing against this congestion in the cities is land settlement. The prime necessity of the day is the acquisition of estates for closer settlement. MORE MONEY NEEDED While in Nelson, the Prime Minister said, he had received a telegram from the Minister of Lands, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, announcing that eight estates already had been acquired by the Government. This was a commencement of the policy which the Government had asked the people for authority to carry out. It had been started and he proposed to take authority next session of Parliament to spend more money to settle the people, 30 that the 18,000 pupils turned out each year from the schools mentally equipped for the battle of life might be found openings. Sir Joseph replied on familiar lines to the criticism of his election proposal to borrow £70,000,000 for State Advances and for railways. He said £10,000,000 of that money would be used to complete long-distance railways. Sir Julius Vogel, in the “seventies,” had proclaimed that trunk railways should be made from end to end of New Zealand and side lines should come in as required. MAIN TRUNK RAILWAYS For some unaccountable reason the South Island Main Trunk line had been stopped when only 53 miles from Picton. The Government proposed to pick up the work where it had stopped and obliterate the gap from the map and put the railway into operation. It would do the same with the West Coast to Nelson line. In three or four years the South Island Main Trunk line would be finished. At present he was balancing, one against the other, the routes for the proposed line between Taranaki and Auckland, which would mean a' saving of one day in travelling and a reduction in freight charges between the two points. The actual cost of the five long-distance railways it was proposed to complete would be only £7,500,000, leaving £2,500,000 to overhead charges, engines, trucks and carriages.

The country should leave short-dis-tance lines. They should never be made again and some that were laid down should be stopped. The loss could not be allowed to go on. They could not possibly compete with motor traffic. As Minister of Finance he was bound to submit proposals for an alteration of taxation in some degree. Concluding, Sir Joseph Ward said: “You will have your railway all right, and so will Nelson and the West Coast. We will finish the North Island lines, too.”

Later the Prime Minister was entertained at a social. ’ He will leave for the South tomorrow morning. Arrangements have been made at various places en route to give him a reception.