LAND FOR SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2721, 16 March 1916, Page 6

LAND FOR SOLDIERS

WHAT IS BEING DONE. In the ballot for the subdivision of the Benmore Run, in North Otago, applications were received from two returned soldiers and 34 members of the Expeditionary -Force. "We arc making it easy for returned soldiers and soldiers still' 011 service to get on tho land," said Mr. Massey, commenting 011 \these circumstances yesterday. "Where ballots are necessary, we give them facilities for competing at ballots; but of course no ballots, except perhaps among returned soldiers, are necessary for subdivisions of blocks set apart specially for soldiers, [f wo have a vacant section of Crown land, and a returned soldier thinks it will suit him, we let him have tho section without any ballot. If a soldier acquires land iti this way, he is forbidden under the Act from disposing of it', for ton -years, but -when they go into a ballot such as this at Benmore, the conditions are the same as for civilian applicants, except that returned soldiers have preference. Single men of military age. and physically fit are' not allowed to compete at ballots at all." A PATRIOTIC GIFT. By Telegraph.—(Social Correspondent! Masterton, March 15. In handing over -his Ahikouka property, valued at about £20,000, to tho .Wairarapa. Patriotic Association on behalf of the Wounded Soldiers' Fund, Mr. A. P. Whatman 6aid that lie desired that trustees should bo appointed and the land held in trust for the benefit of wounded soldiers. At the expiry of fifty years, or in thirty years, if the trustees felt that the object of the trust had been fulfilled, the land is to be passed unreservedly to the Salvation Army. . ,|