DETERIORATION OF LANDS

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1929, Page 12

DETERIORATION OF LANDS

R2LIEF MEASURES URGED ■ CRITICISM OF NEW LAND BILL. FARMERS’ UNION POINT OF VIEW. The question of deteriorated lands was discussed yesterday by the South Taranaki executive of the Farmers’ Union on receipt of a copy of a letter written by the Dominion president, Mr. W. J. Polson,- M.P., with regard to the Land Laws Amendment Bill introduced by the Hon. G. W. Forbes. “The Minister,”, wrote Mr. Polson, “is obviously anxious to help in land settlement, but has prejudiced his chance of success by confining his efforts to one class of land settlement and one class only. The result is not. com men-' surate with the efforts. The Bill provides for dealing with Crown leasehold lands, but overlooks all the other lands which have been arrested in development or are reverting through economic conditions created by high rates and taxes and high costs, over which the unfortunate occupier has no control. “While there is nothing in the. Bill which actually says so, its whole tendency is towards leasehold and the popularisation of the leasehold principle, whereas the ultimate aim and goal of the man taking up land or holding land is to make it his own absolute freehold property, and this in many thousands of instances constitutes a man’s life work. There is no hope of assistance held out to the freeholder, unless perhaps the o.r.p. settlor; he is told practically in cold disdain: ‘Go and stew in your own gravy.’ “The proposals, such as they are, in my opinion are also intentionally clogged by officialdom in the proposed board. What we want is not more machinery, but a simplification and decentralisation in the method of dealing with land settlement. The Minister must,:- of course, be the head of any board, but it must be a board of practical men and not officials. Let the board contain the Under-secretary for Lands and three practical farmers, and when it moves into any district let it sit with the Commissioner of Crown Lands and a local committee of farmers, and some good may come of it, but a purely Official board ,is not going ..to satisfy anybody, even the officials who are on so many boards already that they have no time to attend to their proper duties as heads of departments.

, SCOPE MUST BE WIDER. “But the. whole scope of the measure must ’be widened if it is to do any practical good. What we iieed is adequate provision for concentration on the development of our occupied, but arrested in development or partially developed pastoral lands. There is far more land in process of reversion through arrested development than there is Crown land still available and not settled. The first job is to tackle these lands, which are in most cases actually superior to the lands still to. be opened. Generally the better land was settled first. “These arrested lands must be assisted to develop; they must have loading relief, reduced (or altogether suspended) rating taxation, freedom for a term from land tax, and in some cases assistance through a special branch of the lending department subsidised for the purpose by the State, at very low rates of interest, in order to enable these lands to be brought back into production. This is where the help of the State' is most needed. Nothing is suggested in the Bill for dealing with this y great problem. On the contrary, the tendency is the other way. “Clause 6 of sub-section 5 of the Bill seems further to penalise backblocks local bodies which are struggling to do their best for settlers in their districts. There are other important objections, in my opinion, to the Bill. It makes no provision at all for revaluation or reclassification. The proper plan is, I think, to give the board wide powers to classify all affected land, decide which land is worthy of being assisted in development and which is not, and provide a plan for the farming of what is, with stringent conditions so that the assistance of the Crown cannot' be abused, but so that. those who comply with the conditions will receive such assistance as the circumstances and. the classification of their land warrant,'and receive if quickly. . “It will be seen also that the Minister is to manage partially-developed lands in some cases, surely creating difficulties and dangers for any Minister of Lands. Work is to be done by paid labour, not by the settler. No one can do as well as t'he settler himself, and the danger is that these lands will be so loaded with capital cost that no one will have courage enough to take them up.

FARM SHOULD BE HIS BANK. “The repeal of Section 36 of the old Act will create injustice without relieving the State. It is harking back 22 years to principles that have been long abandoned. It is a different principle from that applied in the cutting up of large estates. A good owner makes his farm his bank, and his improvements are always ahead of the valuation of his land. To. repeal Section 36 without adequate safeguard is an invitation to stagnation in all larger farms. It seems to me a wide departure from the principle laid down by Sir Joseph Ward himself more than 20 years ago, namely, it is necessary that the owner of the land is treated justly and receives a fair value for it. “Another defect in the Bill is that more lending authorities are set up Instead of co-ordinating those we have already, and no help is provided for the man who is already mortgaged in spite of the additional lending authority. “Section 28, preventing two or three people holding and farming land together, is both unfair and unwise. There

is a number of other' provisions which do not appeal to me. The suggestion that the head of the Department of Agriculture should be a member of the board is surely wrong. No provision is made for dealing with endowment lands and land deterioration is altogether ignored.” The chairman (Mr. E. J. Betts) remarked that the problem of deteriorated lands was particularly difficult. Thousands of acres in the North Island had gone back to second growth, being covered with scrub. The deterioration in some places had been very rapid, said Mr. L. A. Jennings. He knew of a block on the upper Waitotara River which had been valued fairly highly ten years ago. Recently the valuer had visited the property again and had found nothing but scrub, the land being practically worthless. Millions, not thousands, of acres of land in the Dominion had deteriorated, said Mr. J. Cocker, and it was freehold land of this kind, not Crown leasehold, that was causing the great trouble. If the- Government helped the freeholders who were in trouble it would mean only that tl.e mortgagees would obtain all the benefit. Some good might be done by calling the settlers together, but officials alone would never solve the problem. Mr. W. E. Carter expressed the opinion that a great many of the holders of deteriorated land must walk off since they were so seriously involved that it ■was beyond the Government’s power to afford them adequate relief. But men who had to leave their farms should be given a fresh start by the Government; even if they had land rent free for five or ten years they would do well foi’ the country by making the land productive, and there were good, hardworking farmers among the men who were being driven out by second growth. Mr. Cocker suggested that the Government should try to . make workable arrangements with the mortgagees in the case of deteriorated land which did not belong to the Crown. A good deal of the land which had gone back to second growth had been taken up under the o.r.p. tenure, and the tenants could not obtain' money on the security of such short tenure. The l.i.p. tenants were all right as the Government had remitted their rent on condition that they spent an equivalent amount on top-dressing, and interest due to the Advances Office-had also been remitted. Mr. Cocker moved that the Government be asked to take action in the direction of inducing mortgagees to grant relief to holders of deteriorated lands, and in the event of satisfactory terms being made the Government should grant subsidies to assist such farmers to make good. The motion was seconded by Mr. E. J. Betts. Mr. M. W. Barker remarked that it was supposed some of the big mortgagees were behind the present Land Bill their idea being to unload their burdens on to the .Government. The motion was carried.