PROMISES UNFULFILLED

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4191, 31 May 1939, Page 6

PROMISES UNFULFILLED

SETTLERS AT KAIRANGI DISAPPOINTED. APPEAL TO GOVERNMENT. During thp visit to Kairangi Settlement on Monday of the acting Minister for Lands (the Hon. W. Lee Martin), Mr G. Headifen, one of the five land tenants at Kairangi, explained that the settlers did not have a grievance with the Government but sought to have righted wrongs which they considered were made by the Waikato Land Settlement Society before the Government took over the properties. When the settlers were launched upon the Kairangi scheme, said Mr Headifen, they were led to believe by the society that there would be full development of the land. The men worked 51 days a week on the block, instead of the 40 hours as arranged, for 25s for single men and 30s for married men, believing that they would secure a section of the land to farm. After 14 months the wages were increased and several increases followed until £4 a week was paid when the Labour Government took office. Then, however, the Land Settlement Society deducted 10s a week rent for the homes, although in the original applications by the settlers the society promised the homes rent free. “The price we have paid 'for the land, ranging from £l9 10s an acre to £3O an acre, does not leave us a great deal for improvements to our hemes,” said Mr Headifen. He added that the society promised that the farms would be properly developed, but that was not the ease, as the fences were of bluegum, which was later condemned by the Government, there were only two water troughs on each farm, and it was not until the Government took over that a manure shed was built on the properties.