Rehabilitation Board’s Responsibility In Field Of Land Economy

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 10, 6 January 1948, Page 2

Rehabilitation Board’s Responsibility In Field Of Land Economy

As a national organisation concerned with large-scale settlement of ex-servicemen on the land, the Rehabilitation Board had a sacred duty and responsibility while settling those men to use land to its best advantage, said Mr J. J. Granville, member of the Rehabiltation Board and chairman of its Farms Advisory Committee, speaking at the quarterly meeting of the Rehabilitation Council held in Wellington. “It is our duty to settle men so that their conditions of settlement will not lead to the impoverishment of the soil,” he added. There was a danger of much land in New Zealand going out of production if it were not utilised effectively and to the best advantage. There was evidence of that occurring now. New Zealand should learn its lesson from the Western World where once fertile land was now desert. Particular care had to be taken with any settlement on marginal land. Although some of that land had already been developed and was now being used for dairying it was basically unsuitable for dairy farming. -In many cases original fertility had already been depleted and would have to be built up again, while increased costs made its economic development doubly difficult.

Mr Granville reviewed settlement progress already made. With a target of 10,000 men to be settled the half-way mark had nearly been reached. Allowing an average of 300 acres a man for all types of farming this accounted in acreage for 1,400,000 acres now settled by servicemen, with a further 1,600,000 acres required to complete the job.

“There is a definite limit to the amount of suitable land that can be acquired,” he said, “remembering that the amount of land remains constant. We have a gigantic task ahead.”

A comprehensive suiwey of land in all land districts was well under way and when completed would show where land was available for closer settlement. Present buoyancy of prices for primary produce made for fewer willing sellers, and this was reflected in a downward tendency in exchange of single unit properties in reecnt months, with the result that fewer ex-servicemen were getting such properties than before.

The development of large areas of virgin pumice land was being pushed ahead, but the shortage of fencing wire and rural housing construction difficulties were chief problems in such land development. “We must settle the remaining men as quickly as possible,” said Mr Granville, “keeping always before us the fact that to the men themselves their future livelihood is paramount.” -