DEVELOPMENT OF LANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1930, Page 6

DEVELOPMENT OF LANDS.

It i.s satisfactory to be assured that the Government is making prompt use of the land legislation passed la t session. According to a recent official "statement funds have been allocated for the survey and reading of certain blocks of land to be thrown open for settlement. With finance arranged there should be no delay in actual operations, though it must be remembered that to survey and road areas of over 19.000 acres is nut a small undertaking, and it will be many months before sections will be ready for occupation. A disquieting feature in' the statement is that although survey and reading is to proceed “the form of actual development has not yet been decided. ’ The average taxpayer will surely consider that a decision as to the use to be made of the land is ’the first to arrive at if waste of time and money is to be avoidc<J. • The Ministry must have before it full reports of the nature and quality of the lands upon which it is proposed to expend public money, and unless that expenditure is in accordance with a well thought out plan of use of the land there seems bound to be waste of funds and still further delay in placing settlers on it. The Government’s record in regard to the development of land settlement must bo disappointing to its warmest supporters. Nor does the latest pronouncement do very much to remove that feeling. There seems in the most recent effort more an attempt to find immediate employment for the workless than a wise endeavour to bring into greater production lands that are suitable for closer settlement. The Government says 'land hunger Is rrfmpant throughout the Dominion and that in an extension of land settlement will be found one of the cures of the unemployment evil. Yet it seems to be choosing the most difficult country as a commencement instead of making less spectacular but far more effective efforts to obtain subdivision of areas that are admittedly larger than can be successfully used by their present occupiers. In this province there is ample opportunity for subdivision were the necessary finance available, and the result would be that new settlers could be placed on their.holdings in fewer weeks than it will take months in the undeveloped areas to which the Govcrnme i is devoting its first attention. Those who have made efforts in this direction have received little encouragement from the authorities, and this apart from any question of the price to be charged for the subdivided lands. No one desires to see another land boom created. There are ways and means of avoiding this, and they should be explored. While roads are made and developmental policies determined unemployment is increasing and the country’s finances are becoming more and more involved. What the country is waiting to see is more settlers in actual occupation and a corresponding increase in the earning, capacity of the Dominion.