LAND SETTLEMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 24 October 1928, Page 5

LAND SETTLEMENT

STRONG CONDEMNATION OF GOVERNMENT.

MR POLSON’S SPEECH

STRATFORD, October 20.

Replying to the. Minister of Lands in the course of an election address, Mr W. J. Poison said that in spite of the unanimous repudiation of the Dominion Executive of the Farmers’ Union and the indignant denial of the Auckland Country Party itself Mr M’Leod was still declaring that the Farmers’ Union was being made use of financially for , political purposes. It was hardly worth) while taking anyone seriously who, faced with overwhelming and convincing proof, still refused to withdraw untrue statements about his opponent, but that apparently was Reform’s method.

As usual Mr M’Leod took the ground that any critic of the Government was decrying the credit of the country, and proceeded to camouflage the.- issue with misleading figures. Mr Poison said he declined to subscribe to that and he was not alone in attacking the Government’s land policy. He quoted the ‘‘New Zealand Herald” as ing that Mr M’Leod was incapable lof enthusiasm towards land settlement, the fundamental problem of the country’s government, and that towards its solution he had nothing to Offer but cynical pessimism, nerveless apathy and hopeless infidelity in both the fertility of our idle lands and the ability of landless settlers, whether New Zealanders ' or British immigrants, to overcome obstacles no greater than their forefathers had surmounted.

The speaker contrasted the Government’s indifference in this respect with its extravagance in railway and hydroelectric construction, and instanced the Rotorua line, quoting the report of a Royal Commission upon the line, that it was not probable that the railway, if constructed, would earn sufficient revenue to pay interest and working expenses. The commission considered that under existing or probable conditions there was no likelihood of such a railway returning sufficient revenue to meet expenditure, assuming interest to be charged on cost at the rate of 4 per cent. The minority report differed only in using stronger terms about such wasteful expenditure. In regard to- Mr M’Leod’s assertion that the area of deteriorated land was not increasing, the speaker quoted an article in the Christchurch “ Weekly Press,” a Reform paper, putting the area at five million acres that bad gone back into second growth. He said that the Year Book figures, when analysed, largely bore out this assertion, and indicated that scrub and fern were increasing at the rate, of 100,000 acres per annum. Mr M’Leod’s difficulty was to reconcile official figures and other Reform opinion with hi a Qwh-,views, and-he-; wa s._ compel led, to resort to the old plan, “When you have no case abuse the other side.” In a country 95 per cent of whose ex. ports were primary increased land settlement was essential, and in this respect the Government had signally failed to carry out its last election pledge to more colsely settle both the unoccupied and occupied lands of the Dominion by purchase and subdivision.