The Daily News MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1930. LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1930, Page 8

The Daily News MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1930. LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT.

Probably no member of the United Party who heard its leader’s confident pre-election promises of greatly stimulated land settlement if he gained office would have believed that two-thirds of Parliament’s life would pass before a comprehensive statement in regard to land development! would be possible. Next to the promise of cheap money, which unfortunately proved illusory, the prospect of ii • vigorous land policy did more than anything else to defeat the Reform Ministry. The Reformers’ attitude in regard to land settlement seemed to be almost one of despair. No attempt to formulate any Dominion-wide scheme was made, and the then Minister of Lands, Mr, A. D. McLeod, said openly that before he could think of increasing the number of settlers he must see that all those now occupying Grown lands had a chance of making' a living. Rightly or wrongly the Reform Party was held guilty of timidity or ineptitude in regard to land matters, and the country turned to the party that promised greater activity and expressed itself epnfident of success. The first stage in the United Party’s land programme was to amend legislation to enable advances to be made for improvements on a more generous scale and to provide for much more latitude in the treatment of Crown tenants in cases of hardship or where land more than ordinarily difficult to bring into profit was taken up. The Ministry had no difficulty in obtaining Parliamentary sanction for the increased powers it sought, ‘ for. every political party claims to be thoroughly alive to the necessity for increased settlement and ~production. The amending Act was passed in 1929, and with all its desire to expedite settlement it has taken' over a year to bring matters to a standing from which a review of the Ministry’s efforts can be made. Thjs will show that a land settlement policy in present conditions is no easy thing to translate into action,, and there is little doubt but, that tlie financial stress of the past few months has proved a. very serious drawback to the Government’s intentions. It claims to have 61,000 acres at present under development or being prepped for development, and rural holdings totalling 1477 aggregating 572,0Q0 acres have been disposed of in the two years the United Party , has .held office. The Ministry has purchased 48. properties witH a total area of, 87,000 , acres. The number of holdings thus made available was 228, and of these 191 have been offered and 182 have been selected, though it is not stated how many are actually occupied at present. In Crown . lands and lands purchased 574 holdings have been' 1 made available, the average cost per settler being £1343. It is anticipated that another 110 sections will he ready for selection next month. As regards finance, the sum of £358,000 has been advanced by the Lands Development Board to settlers for improving the Crown lands they are leasing. The board has also sanctioned expenditure up to £128,000 for the improvement of Crown lands before they are taken up. This is a modern phase of land development, and it is one that must be scrutinised very carefully. If development is to be undertaken by' labour working under Arbitration Court awards and union rules ihe price at which'the land can ultimately be offered for selection will be too heavy to give a struggling settler much hope of success. However, upon this phase of the Government’s policy judgment must be withheld until the proposals have been tried out. In order to judge truly whether progress in land settlement has been real it would be necessary to consider with the figures of new holdings taken up and ready'for selection those in regard to sections that have been thrown up or are held by settlers so financially embarrassed as to- be unable to make a recovery. The Ministry’s statement M ould have been far more valuable had it contained this information. As, it- is the best that can be said for it is that an honest effort is being made to stimulate settlement, among Maoris as well as by Europeans; that some success has attended the Government’s efforts; that portion of its policy is still in the experimental stage, and that the whole problem is one of. economics rather than of land legislation. Of that there seems to be ample.