LAND SETTLEMENT PLANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 843, 11 December 1929, Page 6

LAND SETTLEMENT PLANS

GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME ADVANCES AUCKLAND OPERATIONS (from Our Resident Reporter) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Marked progress has been made in the Government’s land settlement programme, according to a statement by the Hon. G. W. Forbes. Minister of Lands, before he left here for the The Minister said that since the passing of legislation last session much had been done to complete the preliminaries. An experienced man had been chosen as the fourth member of the Land Development Board, and his name would be announced as soon as his acceptance of the position was received. It had been definitely arranged to set up at once three advisory committees in the North Auckland and Auckland land districts, one of which would operate entirely in the pumice areas of Kotorua. The members had been already selected for these committees, because of their special knowledge, and it only required an acceptance from two of them to permit of an announcement being made. The necessary regulations for the working of the Act had been drafted, and would become effective as soon as they had been approved by the Minister of Finance and thß Cabinet. LOAN OF £1,250 The necessary forms of application for loans and cognate papers were about to be printed, said Mr. Forbes. However, applications would be accepted in the interim if merely drafted on plain paper. At the moment it was intended to advance upon the basis, of 90 per cent, of the potential value of the improvements intended to be effected by the. settler, and up to £1,250 a man. Such advances would not be made for the purchase of stock. No fee would be charged tor inspection unless a loan were granted. Every commissioner of Crown lands was at present actively engaged upon an overhaul of the. Crown lands in the respective districts. Actual develop meat work was in hand at Te Kauwhata, under the Department of Agriculture, and arrangements had already been made for the immediate development of about 2,300 acres of pumice lands about 14 miles from Rotorua. The general settlement of Crown lands in the past 12 months had been satisfactory, and had not in any way shown a decrease. The Minister said he had the very fullest confidence that the future would show a marked increase in general settlement. He indicated that the department would have to be most careful in all that it did. Cautiousness on the part of the department did not appear to meet with approval everywhere, but he felt that the problem now being handled was one that required the very utmost of consideration, as the pitfalls were manifest where hasty settlement was attempted. It was proposed, said Mr. Forbes, iu the cases where the men would actually develop the land, to put the oversight of development work iu the hands of the Department of Agriculture, which had its expert officers, and was in an exceptionally able position to deal with the matter. The appropriate roading of the blocks would be undertaken out of the land development fund, said the Minister, and it was intended to utilise unemployed labour in this connection, as he felt that the road development should be very actively prosecuted and, if possible, be ahead of settlement.