HUTT GARDENERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1939, Page 8

HUTT GARDENERS

DETERMINED TO DEFEND LANDS MASS MEETING AT TAITA. WARNING TO GOVERNMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “Wo warn the Government if it persists in its confiscatory policy and does not abandon this scheme that we are unitedly determined to resist by every available means the unjustifiable and harsh interference with our livelihood and onr liberty as British subjects.” To the accompaniment. of a prolonged demonstration of approval 300 Taita and Hutt market gardeners and members of t heir families, whose lands are under proclamation or notice of intention to take for State housing, carried this resolution at a mass meeting at Taita Hall last night. The meeting determined also in the same resolution to protest emphatically against the proposal of the Government to take over marketing gardening land in the Hutt as, other considerations apart, their action was, by reason of there being an abundance of suitable building sites available in the Wellington area, positively unwarranted. The meeting lasted more than three hours, during which the report of the Director of the Hutt Valley Development Scheme, Mr J. W. Mawson, was hotly challenged, allegations being made that computations of the percentage of Hutt supply to the Wellington markets had been made by schoolboy economists. A delegation of Kuku farmers, whose occupancy of their land was recently also threatened, came 60 miles to attend. FARMERS’ UNION SUPPORT. “It may be our turn next, so let us give them every assistance in our power,” said Mr H. J. McLeavey (Manawatu) in moving at the annual Dominion conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union in Wellington yesterday: “That this conference strenuously opposes the action of the Government in seizing farmers’ homes and lands by proclamation without their consent or approval; such action undermines the principle of security of land tenure, which vitally affects every farmer in New Zealand, and as a consequence a vast fall in production is likely to follow; we assure the Hutt gardeners of any support in our power to assist them in their light to retain their homes and land; this conference is of the opinion that it is a retrograde step to erect houses on land which is today producing vast quantities of foodstuffs when adjacent land eminently suitable for housing is available.” The motion was carried unanimously.