Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th. 1920 LAND SETTLEMENT.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th. 1920 LAND SETTLEMENT.

The annual report of the Land Purchase Board has been circulated and it gives particulars of the purchase of land to the tune of £2,029,435 for the period under revietv. These are large figures for the operation of buying back the country’s land after giving away the freehold at a nominal price. Still, the country does not realise what its land policy means or is costing the people. So we have the freehold, the popular title. It is certainly an expensive one for the country. Of the large sum spent in land purchase, every province but Westland has participated in the spoil. Another example of the neglect

Westland suffers from. „ Nearly half a million was spent in Canterbury, over four hundred thousand in Hawkie’s Bay, three hundred thousand in Auckland, and lesser amounts in Otago, Taranaki, Nelson, Marlborough, southland and Wellington, in the order named. In all 176,836 acres were purchased at the above cost, the land being ail required for soldier settlements. A further 25,000 acres were purchased at a cost of £423,000 for individual soldiers, while over £940,000 will bo required for purchases to which the Department is committed. While doing this phenomenal land business the report discloses the other side to the picture when it goes on to «ay: “The

general demand for land is particularly keen, and prices are being paid for properties far beyond what members of the Board feel they can safely recommend. A. large number of places offered present insuperable difficulties :n the way of roading and sub-dividing into reasonable areas, and want of suitable homestead sites. The lot of a. now settler is far from being a happy one, the cost of farm requirements, beino- practically prohibitive, and many ajre unprocurable." Tins: ,indicates -a degree of general inflation which is not a pleasant prospect for the army of soldier settlers. The Government could have done tlie soldier a kinder service by going about the purchase of land in a better way—but that opportunity has now been missed, and although the soldier is on the land, he will pay more dearly than he should. for the home he is making for himself. The Government purchase of land in the manner adopted has helped materia-llv to harden prices, and it was only quite

recently, strange to say that Ministers : awoke to the inevitable, and had to cell a halt—available funds were exhausted and yet more land was needed. The State has been paying too much for the land—and the soldier with the taxpayer behind him must bear the brunt of -this ill-formed policy. This pot news to the country or the Government. Apart from the press criticism on the subject, three yeairs ago, a eontenir porary recalls, the chairman of the board warned the Government and Parliament that at the prices that were then being given for land only the most industrious and experienced of the soldier-settlers could hope for the success they deserved. If the policy , |was dangerous, then it has become ! very much more sP now, and largely because the Government chpse to ignore . the advice of its expert officers. \t j

the present time it appears that many people are prepared to gajnble on the i .‘hance of war time conditions and prices t lasting for ever. Farms are changing hands over and over' again at higher prices every time. The average man is ready to gamble on anything speculative, and land is in that category now with commodities soaring as they are. ■ The rising prices cannot continue indefinitely, and when the fall comes, rhe land owner might have a very heavy burden to bear.