PUMICE LANDS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 158, 29 March 1919, Page 8

PUMICE LANDS

IMPRESSIONS OE A MINISTER.

Some remarks on the pumico lands of the interior of the North Island were made to a reporter yesterday by the Hon. D. H. Guthrie (Minister of Lands). .1 he Minister recently made an inspection of the pumice lands in the centre of the North Island, with a view' to considering their suitability for settlement by soldiers or other settlers.. Speaking to a representative yesterday the Minister stated briefly his opinion of the land and his idea of the uses to which it could be put. P.umice lands, he said, had been wrongly condemned, because thev were jot understood. He saw great possibilities in the development Of tho land, but the development could not be carried out in the way some people thought. ' It, required time, expert knowledge and capital to bring lands into .production, and for that reason lie did Jiot regard it as a fensiblo proposition to place soldiers on the undeveloped .land in small holdings. Tho Government gave liberal terms to soldier-set-.tiers,' but tho soldior would require to have further aid if he wero to go on the pumice land and wait until it came into [production. The Government could not simply place soldiers on the land and then consider the ■ matter ended. It had a greater responsibility to see that thev were of a class and with the means to make a,success of their venture. (Therefore it might ,bo much easier to rtettle soldiors without much capital on land in other parts of Now Zealand, (.which' could . more quickly be brought into a slate of production and without '"the same capital expenditure. He had stated to a deputation at RotojTun that he would, be prepared, if Cabtinet. approved,' ,to , place ■ a hundred retturned soldiers on a Government block of 12,000 acres of pumieo lands to work jon wages under skilled supervision in .bringing the land into production. SWhen they had had tho training on the iland, and it. was sufficiently developed (they would bo given the option of taking up sections on any of the Government tenures they might choose. He ) was not prepared to recommend the Gov- ; ernment to buy other lands on which to make this experiment, when it had thousands of acres of tho same class of country, in its-possession already ami await'ing development..