SOLDIER FARMERS

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 248, 21 October 1942, Page 6

SOLDIER FARMERS

PLANS FOR SETTLEMENT DISCUSSED. The Government's plans for the rehabilitation of returned soldiers ' were discussed by Mr Cullen (Government, Hawkes Bay), during the debate on the Finance Bill in the House of Representatives on Monday. He said that their re-establishment in civil life should be the first esential of public expenditure. The most spectacular aspect of rehabilitation was land settlement. After the iast war many men placed on the land failed to achieve success for a variety of reasons, the chief of which was that they lacked farming experience. This time the Rehabilitation Council and the administrative board were taking steps to ensure that all returned men desirous of taking up farming had a fair chance of succeeding. It was the Government's responsibility to acquire the most suitable land it was possible to obtain. It Was no use placing men on properties acquired at a price so high as to preclude success. For instance, to ask a returned soldier to pay £135 an acre for a farm as a going concern was to court failure. FREEHOLD SUGGESTED. Mr Sutherland (Opposition, Hauraki) said that much of the difficulty facing the Rehabilitation Board in respect of applicants lacking experience could be overcome if they were enabled to qualify as farmers by working on land development schemes. He emphasised that soldiers wffio had fought for the freedom of their country should be enabled to acquire the freehold of lands which they took up. Mr Richards (Government, Roskill) questioned the value of the freehold system. He said that after 16 years of farmers' Governments a report tabled in the House had shown that 90 per cent. of the Dominion's farmers were bankrupt. That was what freehold meant. The banks had got away with the fruits of years of farmers' toil.