The Dominion TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1926. A SUBJECT WORTH SERIOUS DISCUSSION

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 56, 30 November 1926, Page 8

The Dominion TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1926. A SUBJECT WORTH SERIOUS DISCUSSION

As a rule the Minister of Lands is a good-natured if vigorous debater, but he has worked himself into quite a tropical heat over his controversy with the New Zealand Herald on the question of land settlement policy. Apparently Mr. McLeod has taken overseriously the strange inability of our northern friends to visualise public policy save through Auckland-coloured glasses, and has smarted unduly under what to an Aucklander must appear to be quite reasonable criticism. When Auckland wants a particular policy adopted, or a particular work in the north pushed ahead, the Auckland Press is accustomed to use steam-roller methods in gaining its ends, and the measure of success which in the past has attended its efforts certainly appears to justify its methods. ■Mr. McLeod’s resentment against being flattened out or bludgeoned into submission was natural enough, but he allowed his feelings to carry him too far when he suggested the possibility that the attitude of the Herald was prompted by motives of personal gain on the ‘ part of someone connected with the paper. The Minister did not go quite as far as that, perhaps, but his. remarks might bear that interpretation; and we have no hesitation in saying that the Herald is not the sort of journal that such a charge could or should be levelled against. Its record is one that does credit to New Zealand journalism. But while we think the Minister of Lands allowed his feelings to run away with his judgment in his method of answering the Auckland journal, there can be little doubt that he is on sound ground as to the lines of policy he has laid down in regard to land settlement and development. This question is one of the utmost importance to the whole country at the present time, and it is highly desirable that it should be freely and fully discussed from all points of view. The immediate problem is not the opening up of new areas of land for settlement, but the utilising of large areas of inferior land at present in occupation and use to the best advantage. Those who have given the matter serious consideration are perplexed over the problem of rescuing these struggling farmers from their difficulties and of finding some practical means of assisting them to work their farms at a profit. Many who have taken up the poorer class of land with insufficient funds to work it to advantage have left their farms during the past four or five years and given up what seemed to be a hopeless fight, and many more are on the verge of doing so. In various parts of the Dominion land held by struggling farmers is deteriorating from one cause or another. It is not pessimism on the Minister’s part to direct attention to these facts. It would be folly to ignore them and go blindly ahead with the same old jlolicy of placing settlers on inferior lands and thus make a bad position worse. Those who are familiar with the facts recognise that the Minister of Lands, in shaping the future land policy of the country, is confronted with a task full of difficulties, in the surmounting of which he will' require all the assistance and support that those familiar with our land problems can give him. It is too serious a question for personal bickering and heated recrimination to be allowed to cloud the issue.