LAND SETTLEMENT

Chronicle (Levin), 30 March 1946, Page 4

LAND SETTLEMENT

PAHIATUA • R.S.A. TOLD TRUTH At the last quarterly general meetiTig of the Pahiatua ,(w,auch of .the R.S.A., Mc, P. Benaett, of Te Hor.o,, a -memljer of the Dominion Executive ancl, incidentally, a iueniber of the Wellington nand Board, enjightened .the meeting ^ith soniu very interesting facts eoncerning the settlement .of soldiers on the land. He said that to -date, in approximate ig.ur.es, 8500 soldiers were i-nterested in the land .and prior to the grading systeoi eoming into for.ee., 25.) had Ijuen settled. Sin.ce t'he grading a further 140.0 had been se.ttJed of whoau 200 had been settled on bloeks op.eued up by the Crown.

Settlement was taking place today at. the rate of about 100 'a nionth , 'but on the other hand applications for farnis were coming in at the rate of 000 a month. The position had been examined closely by a special comm-ittee of whieli he was a member, and coiFversations with .Ca'binet and the Minister of llebabilitation were frequent. It was obvious thut t'he position was serious and a cbnsideration of many of the statements he was nia'k'ing would eonvince his hearers that on'ly a long term policy was possibie.The Crown had practiealhy no land ot its own ht for soldier settlement, an'cl although it w&s considered -at .oue time that compulsory acquisition of land was the quiekest metlio.d of .settling soldiers, in the light of expevience it wus found to be the most eostly and cer■tainly the slowest method. Development of blocks of land for soldier settlement was bound up wiith the rural housiug question. /The Hous-ing Departme.it undertook "tb; 'erdct 360 pnits November and next June, but the indications were that only 120 of those houses would be available. The estinaate for next year's erection Was 750 aiul thereaf-ter 1000 annually, but it was very doubtful whether such ligures would be aecoinplished. Then again, the matter was bound up materially with the supply of fertilisers, wire and other farming neeessaries.It could be said with some authority that the production from Nauru wouhl not i>e available in the nornial quantities until 1948. Australia had told us that she was unable to supply fencing wire for some considerable time, and so on. . The committee liad estimated that in order to settle all soldier dairy farjners in the Waikato on 45 cow units, the Crown would require to acquire not lesn than 300,000 acres which were at present engaged in the fattening of sheep and lambs for the overseas markets. This would iuvolve freezing works in tlie area, and it must be obvious that the whole .prftblem Jjtusiled with di4H^.%I/ ties^'iS^tes'Ajtd dikefs willing.to sell land to the Ch'own for soldier settlement jwpre .pyqvegjtedL at the present time mostly by the ehange in tlieir siibsequent income from earned to unearned in which case Mr Nash attended to their iucomes in no uncertain nianner. At present in the Hawke's Bay-kasi Ooast area there were 600 to 700 she(?p farmers to be placed on soldier settle ments. He personaily though the matter was quite impossible under present conditions especially in the higher pficed land in thpse parts. He thought the men should be told the true position, and he was somewhat surprised that the Minister of Rehabilitation had not taken this growing body of dissatisiied would-be farmers into his conliden.ee and explained the position frankly arjd openly.

Last year 5254 farnis changed hands and saies were approved by the yarions Land Saies Courts. Of this large nuujber, some 600 sing'le units were taken over by returned men and linanced ny the Rehabilitatiori Board. In addition 81 propertips were acquired by the Min ister under his powers of compulsory purchase. These figures indicated that either the land saies committee Pr tiu' Minister hiinself wero not doing theii ,job. It was estimated that the threc vears' plan of settlement. would cost l»e tween £60,000,000 and £70,000,000. T-) assist^ Mr, Bennett considered that the latv should be amended grviug tlie Min ister power to take land cojnpulsori-Tv wUere it had deteriorated or had been badly farmed, just as was done as a war measure in Great Britain. This would undoubtedly increase production and help the country as a whole. If the prineiple waS adopted of one farm for one farmer and oue house for one family, tlie position would be consider ably relieved both in the settlenient of soldiers on the land and also in the ho'using of these men and their families in tpwas. On the motiOn of Mr. Moriarty, a very heai'ty vote of thanks was carried by aeclamation to Mr. Bennett for his addr§ss.