SOLDIERS ON LAND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5597, 26 March 1943, Page 2

SOLDIERS ON LAND

LACK OF SETTLEMENT POLICY R.S.A. CRITICISM OF DELAY u Nearly three and a half years of war are oeluna us, and tneie is no land settlement policy approved by the Cabinet or any machinery planned to carry one out."

The above comment Was made in a circular aeaiiag wttfi the land side of rehabilitation received irom the New Zealand Returned Services' Association by the executive committee of the Christchurch Returned Services’ Association at its meeting on Monday last.

The circular stated that the lands sub-committee of the Dominion executive committee was very disturbed at the present position of the proposals to settle on the land the men and women who were k serving in the forces. It considered it very necessary that all branches should give their most earnest attention so that the whole strength of the New Zealand Returned Services’ Association was behind any action the Dominion executive committee was instructed to take.

A review of the part played by the Association in the plans of the Government and the Rehabilitation Board was given in the 1 circular. It stated that in 1940, at a conference with the Minister of Lands, a proposed soldier settlement scheme was reduced to a form that generally was acceptable to the Association, and was extremely practical. It was all ready for the Cabinet’s approval. WORK SUSPENDED The passing of the Rehabilitation Act in October, 1941, set up a new means of dealing with land settlement, and the whole of the work that had been done with the Minister and his officers was superseded. In April, 1942, the Association first heard officially of any activity in land settlement, when it was asked to send representatives to a special committee on land settlement to act in an advisory committee to the Rehabilitation Board. The recommendations of this committee were all in line with the Association’s policy, except on the matter of tenure, on which no recommendations were made.

“No report, based on these recommendations, has ever been circulated, nor have the recommendations as the committee presented them been placed before the Rehabilitation Council,” stated the circular. “ The committee has not been called together, and, apparently, it has been dissolved.”

The circular added that in July, 1942, the Rehabilitation Board set up a lands committee, which included one of the Association’s original representatives. This committee sent an outline for a scheme of land settlement and its administration to the Rehabilitation Board.

“ Both the Rehabilitation Council and the Rehabilitation Board reviewed the recommendations and made alterations and amendments, and in the approved form they were in November submitted to the Cabinet,” stated the circular. “ Inquiries made at the end of January elicited the reply that the Cabinet had not yet finalised the matter.” ASSOCIATION’S DUTY Before the circular was referred to the rehabilitation committee, the president (Mr C. Miln) said the land settlement question 1 was very important. The Association had always been concerned that the men in this war should not go through what many soldiers of the last war had gone through, because of lack of judgment in the purchase of land for soldier settlements, much of which was totally unsound from an economic point of view. “ It is disturbing that nothing has been done so far to protect fully these men against exploitation,” said Mr Miln. “ It is our duty to see that they are protected, and not left high and dry after 12 or 15 years of slavery on impossible land, and forced to walk out with nothing.” Mr Miln added that there was a safeguard as far as private purchase of land was concerned in the sound methods of the State Advances Corporation, which provided the finance. The Small Farms Amendment Act provided only for leasehold tenure of land, and the Government had failed to provide any safeguards for that aspect of soldiers’ settlement.