The Guardian And Evening Slur, with which is incorporated The West Coast Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1927. STANDARD STILL.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 September 1927, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Slur, with which is incorporated The West Coast Times. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1927. STANDARD STILL.

vJuMH.aints aie l.le oiloKte i.l l'miiamcut that tlie country is standing still in the matter of land settlement. These complaints are no \v lining voiced m Parliament. “If tliere is one Department that could lie termed a banurapu Department it is the Lands lor Sett.emeiit,” (kclared .Mr U. \\ . l'Oihes, Leader of the Nationalist Party, in the House of Representatives, “it is difficult for an onlooker to say that this Department had come to anything but a standstill, and if it is not at a standstill then the progress that has been made is so slight that it is scarcely peiueptilde” .Mr Forbes instanced the case of the settlers at N«u ronia. There was a case where men had been placed on land that had proved absolutely unsuitable and unlit for settlement. There were others, too, but what was being done ! for them ? The years of wasted effort and the disappointed hopes of these pe..ple could never lie adequately compensated for, bub something could he done to reimburse those who had lost their all. The Minister's experience in buying land under tlie voluntary system had evidently not been a happy one, continued Mr Forbes. It was not the Government’s policy to buy land below valuation. Judging from the past the policy was to buy it much above valuation. What had happened under the Returned Soldiers’ Settlement scheme was well known. Such extraordinary purchases were made at that time that anyone with knowledge of the land was simply staggered. Only recently five abandoned farms in Canterbury had been put up for auction. There was not a single fiid. There had nob been one w il'd in the Budget this year concerning land settlement. The present Government had crime to such a pass that it could not Tliink of one satisfactory transaction which it could include in the Budget. The Government well knew this to be an important matter, for it had put the promise concerning compulsory clauses in the “shop window” at election time. Any Government which endeavoured to sit on the Treasury benches while it neglected land settlement was not going to occupy its position for very long. In fairness to those "ho had v )ted for Reform on the strength of its promises, the Minister should declare his policy. “There is something wrong,” declared Mr W. S. Glenn, Reform member for Rnngitikei. “This continual drift-drift-drift is no good. It is no use side-stepping. Let’s get somewhere with it. We’ve got some farmers i.n the Cabinet—l see a cluster of four over there. Surely they ought to »he able to give us a practical lead.” The Hon D. Buddo predicted that unemployment must continue to be a problem unless land settlement was pushed. Aggregation was going on because it seemed almost a privilege for a wealthy man to buy out liis neighbour, who was' in financial difficulties. The Minister of Lands suggested that the discussion called for very little reply. Critics had attempted to fasten blame on the present Government instead of going further back and examining the legacies which the Government inherited. The bulk of the Te Tvuiti land winch had been abandoned was first settled twenty years ago, but bad the present knowledge been then available he was sure tfiat over a million acres

of that class of land would not have been settled, nor would hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on roads which now produced no return. He agreed that in many eases if a more dumdete study had been given to th,> subject of sub-division in times gone by there would have been greater success. Hundreds of thousands of acres, of high country in the South Island had been left without winter areas. If it was the policy of the Government- to abandon high country runs to noxious weeds and rabbits, well and good, but lu* would definitely declare that many of those large areas would never he snecesslully worked, unless a sufficient area of warmer country in lowlands was made available.