FALLACY OF LAND SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 July 1933, Page 3

FALLACY OF LAND SETTLEMENT.

(To the Editor.)

Sir,— W. F. Massey came into power in 1910. From that day to this there has been a shortage of settlement on the land As we are essentially a country*living (even, existing as at present) by primary production, a progressive policy of land settlement is and always will be our paramount policy. Observing the position since Reform assumed power, it has been a glaring fact that no young man without capital has been able to go on the land until the returned soldiers had to be fixed up with a piece of land they fought for—l might even say earned. I shall dilate more fully on this presently. Then we have the election campaign of 1925, with the then Minister for Lands (the Hon. A. D. MacLeod) having the temerity to state at all his political meetings “land setttlement in New Zealand has reached saturation point.” With all that has been said and done against the interests of New Zealand this to my mind was the the most serious, bearing in mind that we sink or swim by primary production. I will instance one case where this country as a whole and the returned soldiers in particular had a bad deal. The Reform Government bought approximately 3000 acres of land 21 miles south-east of Stratford for £ll per acre, for cash or near enough to it. The Government cut this very second class land up into 11. sections and threw them open to returned soldiers for ballot some of them ranging in price up to £2l 10s per acre without a boundary fence or a building. Some of these sections were never taken up, and to-day there are only five bona fide settlers in occupation. They are taking less off the property than the original vendor, who was a first-class farmer of this type of land.

This is where New Zealand has slipped badly through its Reform Government. The vendor of the property purchased 600 acres of the “Hyden Estate” for cash at £35 per acre, and has since aggregated more land in the vicinity of Hyden. Someone else was also aggregating within a short distance of Hyden, and back in 1921.1 saw schools shut, houses empty and moss growing on the metalled roads. The point I wish to make is that had the Government not purchased this Tawhinhi property but put the money into 600 acres of Hyden they would have successfully settled 12 returned soldiers who would have succeeeded without any writing off, as instance the Kopane estate adjacent at £6O per acre.

To-day we are on the ten acre scheme and boosting “back to lhe land.” Saturation point in the meantime must have subsided somewhat. So far I have been destructive. Now for something constructive. Let us hunt up the owners of large holdings of first class dairying land and allot this in 50 acre holdings to the land-hungry. There are sheep right up to the borough boundary of Feilding. There is in that district alone room for hundreds of land-hungry people only too willing to work and so help New Zealand to progress and become solvent. Let us have all first class land producing to the full, and then it would be time to begin our irrigating and pumice policies.—l am, etc., A. D. CORKILL. Tawhinhi