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Hokitika Guardian, 26 April 1927, Page 2

The proposal to establish a New /calami Land Settlement and Development League is not to he interpreted, says an Auckland paper, as an attempt to embarrass the Government or to provide a new field for the activities of party politicians. It is rather, as General Bussell said at the recent Conference, an attempt to form “a well considered public opinion" on this subject, based noon first-hand information from all available .sources. I’nfortunalely, there seems to he ample room for such a project. The Minister of Lands, in a communication to the meeting, slated that, since the post-war slump began, not loss than 3) commissions or committees have repot t*'< 1 to the Government on the land i(iiestion. Bui it i- none the h-ss true that nothing elfcetive has yet been done to solve this great problem; and Unit in itself provides complete justification lor the steps that those interested in the land question throughout the Dominion arc preparing to take. There are certain phases of the land question that must appeal even to the average ‘'man in the street" as requiring grave and prompt consideration. The scarcity of land available for settlement and likely to lie productive, the comparative failure of the attempt to reclaim our swamp lands (as explained by the Minister himself), the financial and other difficulties that have to be faced by our ‘'baekbloek” settlers, as was instanced in the recent shocking revelations of the state of things at Ngaroma, the futility of bringing out large numbers of immigrants yearly to “go on the land’’ when there is no prospect of settling them to their own. advantage and the benefit of the country, these are some of the questions into which the proposed Board of Inquiry should collect information ; and if its work in this direction is well done, it will more than repay the Government and the Dominion for all the time and trouble and I expense that it may entail.