SOLDIER SETTLERS.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1924, Page 4

SOLDIER SETTLERS.

POSTPONEAIENV OK ARREARS. iS IT A WRONG fOl.lt Yf IIi.ENHKLM, Alay 21 At the annual meeting oi the AL-.G-'icroiig!! Patriotic Association a good deal ol discussion centred round a elau-e i:i I lie annual ivprt , ill w hich llie exeiutive expie<.-e:l the opinion that postponing the arrears of soldiers' rents was etdv putting off the evil day. and it would Lave keen much better to have faced the p.i-ition boldly by having tho arrears instead oi' postponed fully written off', thus giving the men a fresh start in life with u clean sheet and on a very lunch lower valuation basis.

Air E. J. Harvey suggested that a resolution should he framed urging tho Government to wine otr tho settlor'' arrears rather than as had boon done in some eases postpone a settlement for thirty-eight years. He asserted that no commercial firm which bad a had debt would delay thirtyeight years in wiping it off its ImioKs. All- Ch Noes, who is a member of the local revaluation eoniinittee in c-onncc- • tion with soldiers’ lands, asked it it was wise for a body like the association, which had not the intimate knowledge the revaluation committee had of individual cases, to criticise the work of the committee. He thought _the reference in the report to the remission of rents was unfortunate. Purely they gave the committee credit for carefully investigating each sol-

dior’s circumstances, 110 asked tlic meeting not to pass a resolution hastily without the facts. Mr Harvey’s suggest ion, he thought, was.not a good one. There might be, lor oxemplc, two men side hv side, one of whom had paid his rent or part of it, while the other had not paid a farthing. Was it fair to the man who had paid that the other ' man’s arrears should be remitted ? Mr llarvev said his argument was that tin? Covwrnmont had made a had debt. It should face it now and not leave the soldiers’ position to be considered by an unsympathetic public in thirty-eight years’ time when it could be considered by a sympathetic public now. “We all know how much was done for the Crimean veteran when the Crimea had been practically forgotten,” he .-aid. “Vet those men probably went away witli the same promises as did oar boys to the Croat War. In thirty-eight years time who knows what public opinion will be? We do know that it is even now rather less sympathetic towards the soldier than it was five years ago.” He said it appeared to him that the great body of taxpayers all over the Dominion would prefer to face the loss on soldiers’ farms, give the men a chance and he done with it. However, he would not care to bring forward a resolution on the subject if it was likely to he opposed.”

Mr l<\ C. Hell, another member of the revaluation committee, ii the course of a discussion which followed, said the committee had gone carefully into all ihe cases and knew what it was doing. Nothing should be done which would make the soldier who bad paid bis way fed be bad been a . fool to meet his obligations. .Mr N'oes said that without revealing secrets he could tell the meeting that in a ca.-e where the price of a soldier’s land was reduced from say CIO to Cb his back rent was reduced correspondingly and th<* revaluation became retrospective. "Wc then recommend whether the arrears should lie remitted for ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years, hut there is not reason why idicy should not be remitted altogether.”

Mr Harvey: II in lace of your recommendations the Government decided to write off the whole of the arrears instead of Ini'll, as in the instance you ipioted, I suppose you would say they were wrong. Mr Nccs: No, but I'd say they were fuels. This dosed tlie discussion.