SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 813, 6 November 1929, Page 6

SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

NEED FOR SELECTION OF CANDIDATES INQUIRY COMMENCES Press Association WELLINGTON, Tuesday. The Economic Pensions Committee, appointed to inquire into the condition and circumstances of physically and economically incapacitated soldiers, opened its Wellington sitting today, evidence being given by John Henry O’Donnell, controller of accounts in the Lands and Survey Department He said that unfortunately a number of the soldier settlers were inexperienced and physically unfit to carry on farming on a large scale; and before deterioration in properties set in, it became necessary to realise. He considered the land par. chased should he of the best quality and in the vicinity of large centres ot population. The department was meeting with some success with the settlement of selected men on smalt areas, for which purchase was arranged privately with Government finance. ~ .

Out of 722 men settled, or assisted, on small farms, there were 179 failures or 24.8 per cent. The biggest percentage of failures had been in poultry farming, 37. S per cent., small fruit farming 19.2 per cent., and market gardening 13 per cent.