SOLDIER SETTLERS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4581, 2 July 1923, Page 3

SOLDIER SETTLERS.

CRITICS OF HIGH-PBICED LANDS.

In his speech on the Address-in-Reply question Mr A. D. McLeod (Wairarapa), who has taken a keen interest in soldier settlement, which he himself has materially assisted, made some interesting comments. Tins, he said, had become a strong party question on the part of the opponents of the present Government. He believed that the promises of the Government would be carried out to the letter. He, for one, could speak with a good deal of feeling on this matter. By their personal exertions and their influence many hon. members had been keeping scores and scores of soldiers upon the land—men who would otherwise have abandoned their holdings twelve months ago. Many soldiers had come to him, ns they had come to other members, with ■(.heir -difficulties and troubles — troubles that had come to all who had been through the boom time. His advice to them had been: “Hang on, the Government of the day has made you promises, and those promises will be . carried out.” He would not continue to support any Government that did not carryout 'those promises to genuine triers, said Mr McLeod. That was what he felt in regard to the soldier settlers, and he was sure it was also the feel - ing of ojher members on rhe Government side of the House. Undoubtedly, the country was going to make lossesThere were many reasons for that. About twenty millions had been spent on the purchase and stocking of the lands for soldiers, about seven or eight millions of which were under sections 2 and 3 of the Act. Those sections gave the Government the right to advance money to soldiers to purchase individual farms, farms of their own selection. Then the group system was introduced in 1916 or 1917, during the -regime of the National Government, two or more men being permitted to take up an area. The question was sometimes asked, why was this class of land purchased. It was because of "the cry right through the Dominion that our boys who had been away for three or four years-in the trenches, separated from all home comforts, and those whom they loved, should not be compelled to go up into the bush and swamps lands and -take up undeveloped land. He believed -that would have been the best, thing, for them to have done, as things had turned out, because the money that had been expended in purchasing their present developed farms could have been spent in developing the lands referred to. But the cry for the soldiers to be placed on the better lands was so insistent that no Government could have withstood it. In 1919 the people of the Dominion would have swept out of existence any Government opposing such an insistent demand. He admitted that .there would be losses, but ffiey would not be as great as at one <ime feared,.and he knew the country was ready to applaud the Government that would tackle the question boldly and at once. (Hear, hear.)