LAND FOR SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2739, 6 April 1916, Page 3

LAND FOR SOLDIERS

AND THE PREFERENCE

XWO CHARGES AGAINST THE

GOVERNMENT

Two cases of alleged l failure on tho part of the Lands Administration to give preference to soldiers, applying for sections of Crown or settlement lands have been the subject of some newspaper Comment in the localities where they nave occurred.

' . One: was. in Telation to a section of the Ben More runs, high sheep country in. North Ot-ago. It .was alleged there ; that a soldier was beaten at the ballot by a young man who had married a few days previously, in order, as it .was suggested, to make himself eligible for tho 1 ballot.. When the Prime Minister heard of this case he Asked the Ot-ago Laud Board for particulars, and he has now heard that the man whj was successful at the ballot has expressed his intention of. giving up the section in favour . of a soldief wtio drew the second marble. The; other case is nearer home, being in the Manawatu district. The facts are adequately covered in the following ; statement by the Commissioner of Crown Lands' to the Prime Minister:—

"The Wellington Land Board at : its ' . last meeting recommended the Minister of Lands, .under Section 129 of the Land .'Act, to-grant section; 28, Block 10, of the TJmutoi-survey district, containing 260 acres, to T. Foot, who already holds 1 milling rights over 90 acres of.tne section, which rights do not expire, for twelve or eighteen months. Mr. Foot is a married man with a family o§ 12 children, and I think I am right in say- . lng he has two boys now serving with the Expeditionary Force at the front. He has a small milling plant erected on t*h.e section, but owing to . scarcity of labour arising from the war, and to the] ; distance 'of the mill from the railway line, viz.", 2o miles, he is unable to com.p'ete'. with the timber, mills which are ; situated at or'in close proximity to the railway. 'Mr. Foot, has a lot of both cut and standing timber on the land over which he holds these rights,: and when he appeared before the Land Board .'he stated his intention.was, if the sec- :■■ tion in question were, granted him, to only ywork his plant intermittently, and so be in a position to supply over many years to come the needs of the settlers . la the surrounding districts at a cheaper rate than it would be possible for them ■■ to get timber if it had to be carted over the road'from the rail ivay for a distance of 25 miles. The Land Board unanimously considered that it was 'a right and proper thing to grant Mr. Foot the Section, as by doing so they were not >nly assisting a very deserving settler frith heavy family -responsibilities, but were acting in the interests of the whole bf the settlers of' the' district.. ,'The .young man who applied,for the section knows nothing about farming, and is only working in the district, and gave that as his reason for applying for the section. The board can give hima more 'suitable section for his require- \ nents if he applies to, them, in connection with which he would not have to wait a lengthy, period, before obtaining possession, as would have been the case in regard to the section now under cri- . ticism.; Under. existing circumstances it was quite impossible for Mr. Foot to mill the standing timber on the section ' in the time at his disposal under the timber right, and if the section had been offered to a returned soldier at the expiration ,of .the right, it would simply have meant- that all f the milling timber now standing would have been lost, and Mr. Foot very seriously crippled."