SETTLING SOLDIERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 57, 18 June 1948, Page 4

SETTLING SOLDIERS

Sir, —About 18 months ago at Rangiahua, I met a sawmiller who was anxious to dispose of 5,000 acres of worked out heavy Kauri and puriri country right alongside a bitumen road in order that he might obtain another milling block. I proposed to him that he cut it into 5acre blocks and start a community with store, hospital, school and all the necessities for a whole social life and get 1,000 returned soldiers to grow vegetables for the Auckland market and the Tokerau Maori Dairy Company. It is good limestone country, somewhat similar to the low-roll-ing hills between Tauranga and Katikati. There is sufficient timber left on the place, and any amount of limestone/to build with. The miller wanted £2 an acre. I considered that if each man could raise the price of a five acre section, they should be made not transferable except to the organisation or fellow members of it. Each member, should have the right to sell his improvements to the organisation or a fellow member of it. To establish amenities in the first place, I suggest some of the idle patriotic funds could be used. Yours etc., b. a. McPherson.