LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11609, 29 January 1916, Page 1

LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

FINANCING THE NEW SETTLER. [Fkom Otjr Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, January 26. The Prime Minister's promises in regard to the provision of land for returned soldiers do not appear yet to have taken any very tangible shape. At the meeting of the Wellington Land Board yesterday Mr G. H. M'CUure. j the new Commissioner, whose wide practical knowledge of farming matters enables him to speak with special authority, without presuming to criticise the action or inaction of the political head of his department, made it perfectly clear he did not think the Government had opened the door wide enough to soldiers who wished to get on to tiio land. "In my opinion,''' he said, ''every discharged soldier might to be very liberally treated. Every fighter desirous of land should be given a section to the exclusion of the man. who canfight but stays at home." Mr M'Clure and his unofficial colleagues are doing their best to give effect to these admirable sentiments, but unhappily the regulations framed under the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Acc of last session provide no facilities for men without capital getting on to the Uud. A number of applications are before the board, but apparently the ministerial mind has not \et evolved a scheme by which farmers ran be made out of men without u.ionej'. ,