EX-SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1931, Page 8

EX-SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

The report for the last financial year in regard to ex-soldier settlements is not very cheering. It shows ' that the melancholy process of writing oil’ losses is by no means completed. To give soldier settlers now in occupation of their farms a chance to make good it was necessary to grant additional loans totalling £755,000, a sum which represents more, than three-fourths of the total loans granted ex-servicemcn for land settlement last year. The State had 201 farms previously held by exsoldiers on its hands when the report was written, 100 being available under freehold tenure and 101 under leasehold. The area included in the abandoned farms was 114,890 acres, which seems to indicate that the greater number of failures to make good have been in the pastoral areas. Settlers on such farms have felt more drastically than anyone the fall in the prices of wool and meat, and it is in such areas that the need for constant expenditure upon improvements such as clearing and fencing is essential if progress is to be made or a holding enabled to pay its way. It appears evident that with revaluations already made at the expense of the State the more closely settled areas are more or less successful, though in regard to & number of farms further assistance is sure to be required. A displeasing feature of the report is that 189 residential properties to the value of £124,035 granted to ex-servicemen have come back into the possession of the State. The terms granted to soldiers were exceptionally easy, and the fact that so many of the properties have been beyond the resources of those to whom they were allotted will create apprehension in regard to the general scheme of advances by the Srsie for the erection of homes. The average value, of the abandoned properties, £960, indicates that they were of a type that should not have been a heavy burden upon the original occupant, and the fact that nearly 200 have been abandoned is proof of the serious effect of the present de-, preseion upon house property throughout the Dominion.