LANDS MINISTER MAKES PROMISE

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 10

LANDS MINISTER MAKES PROMISE

WILL PUT COMPULSORY PURCHASING CLAUSES INTO OPERATION, j (Special to the “Star.”) WELLINGTON, June 22. “As Minister of Lands, with full authority of the Government, I say that the Government will not hesitate to put the compulsory clauses of the Land Act into operation, ” announced the Hon A.D. M’Leod, in answer to some critical Opposition speeches in the House to-night. The Minister indicated, however, that it is not an immediate possibility, adding: “I am not going into Court with values jumping up and down as they have been doing, because we would get well salted in the decision which the Court could not fail to make.” Mr Parry: Have we reached a dead end ? Mr M'Leod: There is a lot o? settlement going on now, and, taking it by and large, it has been up to the average, though at present it is pretty dead. The fact is, we cannot get men game enough to take up land under present conditions of export values. The Minister stressed the importance of experience in making a success of land operations, declaring that he was so satisfied, through his knowledge of New Zealand’s undeveloped lands, that it would be criminal to bring men into the country and say: “Go on the land, and by hard, honest toil you can make more than ordinary wages.” A man could earn more money easily intown in a forty-four-hour week. Mr M’Combs: People in this country all their lives cannot get land. MEN WITHOUT EXPERIENCE. Mr M’Leod retorted that he was well aware of it; but what would the critics say to a man without experience who ventured his capital into a town business? Yet there was a, feeling on the Labour benches that they could put a man on the land knowing nothing of it, and that by going bull-headed at it sixteen hours a day he would make money. There was plenty of land for settlement and subdivision when values got back to stability, which could only happen when export values became stable. “I quite agree with -what the Minister of Lands said about people with English farming experience not making good here simply by reason of that,” said Mr Forbes, Nationalist leader, referring to land settlement. “Unless they have knowledge of local conditions they are likely to end disastrously here in New Zealand.” There were a certain number in the Homeland who had capital enough to tide them, over till they understood New Zealand conditions, but the number was limited. It was better to put our own people on the land and create vacancies in the towns. It was good advice to those proposing to come to New Zealand to settle on the land that they Should first study our conditions. A lIAPPY DAY. Sir Joseph Ward later in the evening declared his immense pleasure at what the Minister of Lands had said regardin compulsory purchase. It would, he suggested, have amazed former Liberals had they heard such sentiments coming from the Minister’s side, because he remembered that when the Liberals advocated compulsory purchase at fair prices they were denounced and looked upon as political criminals. Mr H. Holland: They called you Socialists. Sir Joseph Ward: Yes. You will find enbalmed in the records of “Hansard” denunciations of our proposal to pay full value on compulsory purchase, and there was never a case in which we did not give the man more than his full value. I am proud and happy to be alive to hear it coming from this source, which in days past so viciously denounced us, not the Hon Minister himself, but the party he represents. They rose in anger and called us names, and now in two short sentences I hear it put right.