Servicemen Farm Settlement

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 March 1949, Page 4

Servicemen Farm Settlement

Sir,—l read with interest the report of the R.S.A. Farming Sub-Com-mittee in your issue of Friday last, and have been hoping the some abler pen than mine would take up the case on behalf of those ex-servicemen who are more genuinely concerned with land settlement than they are with waging a niggling warfare against “the powers that be.” I am graded “A" and naturally want to get settled on my own farm as soon as possible, but alter having considered the question from all angles, have concluded that the Government is already doing all it can do, short of more arbitrary methods, to implement its land settlement programe as speedily as possible. In the meantime I am content to be employed on the land and at the same time extend my knowledge of farming against the day when. 1 take over my own farm.

It is obvious on listening to the members of the R.S.A. Committee that they, for reasons best known to themselves, are like Paddy "agin the Government" and a lot of hot air and ballyhoo has been expended in getting them just where Mr. McGregor admits they have got—nowhere. This is not really surprising when one considers that getting somewhere usually entails some dcliniite progressive effort on the part of the one concerned, but no such effort seems to have emanated from this committee

If we must have a committee let us have one by all means, but let us have one free from bias and therefore capable ol constructive thinking If the present committee would drop its petulant attitude, get down to business and make a definite attempt to formulate something in tlie nature ol a concrete proposnton toward lhe speedier settlement of ex-servicemen, which is the purpose for which it was set up, then 1 am quite convinced that the Minister of Rehabilitation would be all attention and happy to cooperate

Mr. McGregor should have substantiated his claim that men had travelled long distances to meet tlie Rehabilitation Farming Committee and had then not been interviewed. On the day the writer was graded, one of tlie men waiting for interview wished to get away early, and had no difficulty in arranging with tlie Farming Officer for an earlier appointment with the Committee, and 1 understand that this is all that is necessary.

Mr. Harvey Gilberd’s reference to representations being made for a member of tlie R.S.A. to be present al the Rehabilitation Farming Committees meetings, apart from being unethical and a reflection on the integrity of the committee, Is most amazing in view of the fact that every member of tlie committee and the Farming Officer wears the badge o 1 lhe R.S.A., and the association is already represented 100 per cent. What good purpose this further representation, if acceeded to, is expected to achieve 1 fail to see, but 1 do see in this request another example ol the pin-pricking tactics employed by the R.S.A. Farming Committee since its inception-tactics which are neither hel[® to the purpose for which Hie committee was set up, nor acceptable to the majority of the men whom it is supposed to represent.- I am, etc., “GRADE A."