Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPTEMB. 27, 1923. LAND VALUES—THEN AND NOW

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2638, 27 September 1923, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, SEPTEMB. 27, 1923. LAND VALUES—THEN AND NOW

ADDRESSING a meeting at Wellington on Sunday night, under the auspiftgs of the Wellington Labour Representative Committee,' Mr >T. Wigna.ll, M.P., a member of the British Overseas Settlement. Commission, said: “During his visit, through New Zealand he had seen stretches of land which had been bought at 5/- and sold at £(10, and the owners’ sat hack and said how well they had done in the fair land of New Zealand.” Tt is true (bat money has been made by land speculators in receiil years but land purchased at 5/- per acre and sold at £OO sounds somewhat bald. Between the 5/- and £OO transaction there is much that Mr Wignall, M.P. has yet to learn in connection with (he pioneering experiences in the settlement of this country which Mr Wignall would do well to make himself familiar with ere he repeats such a bald statement to his-Labour friends in the Old Land. Here is a starting point. At Wellington on the following night a reunion of pioneers was held and among those present was His Excellency the Gov-ernor-General (Admiral Viscount Jellicoe). In the course of his remarks His Excellency said that the early settlers were distinguished as indeed, were all Britishers, by their grit, courage and determination: by the refusal to see when they were beaten, a characteristic of the British which had brought them through many difficulties and many adversities. Continuing, His Excellency said when one considered what those early settlers managed to stick, though they got no pound-for-pound subsidies, and though they had to walk an average of forty miles a day carrying all necessaries of life on their backs, one realised from what this great Dominion had grown and what it owed to its early settlers. They were never disheartened and hatl produced a country which was blessed with the most humane and democratic laws of any country in the-world, in which everybody had the chance.to be happy, to live in comfort and to make good. And most of the ercdilywns due to the early settlers. Such tribute throws a little light on the gap between (he 5/- and £6O values of land.