MINISTER REPLIES TO “ N.Z. HERALD.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18015, 27 November 1926, Page 10

MINISTER REPLIES TO “ N.Z. HERALD.”

HAS GONE A LITTLE TOO FAR, HE DECLARES. (Special to the “Stax.”) WELLINGTON, November 27 ~ In answer to the “New Zealand Herald’s’* article calling him the “Chief Pessimist of New Zealand,” the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Lands, replies in the “Post** that the Press controversy on land settlement has been carried to a point where it is necessary to get down to first principles. He, is prepared to accept fair criticism. His fight is specially with the “Herald,” and those who have echoed its policy. “The ‘Herald’s* policy is to throw open large areas of unoccu pied Crown Lands in the Auckland province,” he said, “while the Government’s is to consolidate as far as possible the position of the many hundreds of settle-rs, who are battling against tremendous odds. The Government has the support of every practical farmer prepared to sign his name, while the ‘Herald* is backed up by land agents, who wish to unload on the general taxpayer thousands of acres of second and third class land, the owners of which apparently will not spend a shilling in the development of the land.”

lie has before him, he says, a list of 100.000 acres which have been of fered to the Government at various times for purchase and close settlement. In that list appears SOOO acres offered in the names of persons associated with the owenship of the "Herald.” He had no intention of bringing the names of private persons into the controversy, but the “Herald” had gone a little too far in its most recent attack upon him. While he retained his position as a Minister of the Crown, he said, he would consider it his duty to do what he could towards assisting the small settler, who, to-day, was having a hard struggle, and at the same time protect the public purse against those prepared to foist lands upon the Crown at what, in his opinion, was three or four times the present-day value.