TALK IN MILLIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 34, 10 February 1933, Page 6

TALK IN MILLIONS

In his comments upon the Small Farms Bill the Leader, of the1 Opposition ; ' .statecl that the Labour Party had always maintained that a scheme of land settlement must figure 7 as a substantial part in any effort to. cure unemployment;. The scheme should riot start off with less than a million acres and even with that area > the ■■ maximum number that couldt be., would be twenty thousand.' If ;New Zealand' had. wide/unsettled areas a million-acre' scheme; would ■be feasible; 'but anyone who has given attention to the subject knows that blocks of this size or near this size are not available. There are remote bush lands, mimice lands, and swamp. But these are not always suitable forj development by inexperienced men. Among llic prospective settlers there are probably some with sufficient experience to make a success in breaking

in difficult country, if the capital can be found, but the majority will require to be started on improved land. This must be in small areas. Admittedly the supervision and assistance of new settlers who are scattered are more difficult and expensive than is the control of a group settlement scheme. But if the land is not available for the big plan it is idle to hold up work because the small things are despised. New Zealand has reached the stage when her progress will depend in great measure on attention given to small things—small farms, small savings in.working those farms, and small;increases in productivity. The man who helps to put a hundred settlers.on the land in ones and twos is doing more for the settlers and country, than one who talks of putr ting ten thousand on.