Injustice To Farmer, Says Ms. Holland On Soldier Settlement

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 November 1949, Page 5

Injustice To Farmer, Says Ms. Holland On Soldier Settlement

MASTERTON, Last Night (PA).— “When land is acquired, either compulsorily or by negotiation, for the purpose of soldier settlement it is paid for at the 1942 values. The National Party thinks that is a grave Injustice to farmers whose land Is taken when everyone else is on present day values,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, in Masterton tonight. Ex-servicemen should be settled on the land at the 1942 values, Mr Holland said, but it was wrong to place the responsibility for that on the individual vendor. The difference between the 1942 and 1949 values should be spread over the community as a whole, and that was what the National Party as the Government would do. The farmer should be treated fairly and justly and the exserviceman settled on the basis of the 1942 values. “The National Party is concerned with the drift away from the country to towns and cities, and every effort should be made to try and arrest that drift,” declared Mr Holland. “We will provide rural areas with facilities and amenities comparable to those in the centres of population. People in the coufltry are just as entitled to higher standards of living as those in the towns and cities.”