Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1929, Page 4

It is part of the Government’s policy of land settlement .to -prepare land for settler's’ use so that a new settler, instead of having , to spend his first months -in breaking in Iris land, will be able to get some return from it from the first. The working out of tlrjs interesting experiment is awaited with keen interest. Not only will it ease tlie first years of the settlers’ life, which are always the hardest, hut it should facilitate the financing of his enterprise. “It has again been found during the past year,” says the current report on Crown lands settlement, “that many persons desirous of selecting Crown had little or no eaoital available, and it is, of course, difficult for tbo Department' to pT;mo such applicants satisfactorily.” In

many cases it would be more advantageous for a man,to take up a section already broken in, and to pay a slightly higher rent in consequence, than to s.art in and do all the .clearing and grassing himself. An Auckland paper thinks this is work to which hundreds of unemployed could be profitably put. At present many, unemployed are placed on road works of doubtful . utility or at any rate urgency. The gain, to the' country would be much greater if they were set to clear blocks of land for settlement. There are three classes of land on which they could;be put to work—virgin Crown land, deteriorated and abandoned h ridings, and sections which the . occupants are unable Ato develop. It is tor the Government to decide where they could be employed to the best advantage. The departmental organisation is there to he utilised. Suiiable/men could be picked from the ranks of the unemployed; men with some knowledge of land work, and preference could be given to tlioes who wish to settle in the country. Some.of \these men would', wish to take up sections on the. areas,treated, and every facility should bo given to them to do so. pf course, settlement would have' ito* follow hard , on the heels of : development, but. that would be a matterof organisation and inducement. This seems, to us to he a much more beneficial method of using the unemployed; than is the average relief work. '•