TEN-ACRE SCHEME.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LIV, Issue 28, 18 November 1932, Page 3

TEN-ACRE SCHEME.

FINANCED BY CAPITAL FUND. WELLINGTON, Last night. “The cost of putting men on the land under the ten-acre farm scheme does not come out of the Unemployment Fund,” said the acting-Minister of Employment, Hon. A. Hamilton, when replying to questions asked in the House during this evening’s discussion on the Estimates as to the source of the finance for land settlement schemes for the unemployed. Information as to the method to be adopted in financing the scheme of the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates for placing 10,000 men on the land was also sought by Mr W. E. Barnard (Lab., Napier). “It is a costly business settling men on the land,” said Mr Barnard, ‘ ‘ and I am wondering if 10,000 men are settled out of the unemployment funds whether there will be anything left for the other 60,000 who are out of work.” A group settlement scheme along the lines of that in Western Australia was advocated by Mr H. G. Dickie (Govt., Patea). He said that in a closely-settled district it was difficult to obtain suitable land, and in his district few men had been settled under the ten-aere scheme. A good number of men, however, had been placed on a share-milking basis and supplied with a cottage. Under a group settlement each man was placed on a section and paid to improve it at current contract rates. Mr D. G. Sullivan (Lab., Avon) said that if unemployment funds were to he used for land settlement there would he less for the remaining unemployed. It was important to know whether' the scheme was to be financed out of the unemployment fund or whether the money was to come from some other source. Mr Hamilton said that the cost of placine men on the land under the ten-aere farm scheme had not come out of the Unemployment Fund, but out of a capital fund of £50,000, established last year. That capital fund was really a big assistance to the Unemployment Fund. Perhaps the Unemployment Fund bore the cost of sustenance, say for three months, for men placed on sections, but they ultimately went off the fund.