SETTLING WASTE LAND

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3980, 6 August 1929, Page 1

SETTLING WASTE LAND

Of all the subjects covered in a Financial Statement of very comprehensive range, none is more important or of greater promise a than that touching the settlement of waste land, forming part of the Grown estate comments the Auckland Herald. It is interesting to notice that two systems are suggested, to work parallel. By the one, the land would be brought into such a condition that it offered the incoming settler the. prospect of an immediate livelihood, the cost of this process being capitalised and added to the valuation of the land. By the other, men able and willing to do the pioneering work themselves would be offered land at a nominal price, advanced capital on specially favourable terms, and given scope to apply their own ideas and methods to the task. There is (room for both and need for both. The proposal to borrow up In £5,000,000 for these purposes and to create a, special lands development branch of the State Advances Ooi.ce to oversee the second i method of encouraging settlement |i s eminently sound. There, is no | purpose for which the credit of | the State could be more legitimate!!v used, or with better prospect of ! a favourable directl.yjand iuj directly, than in effecting the utilisation of these waste lands. In the interval between the Government’s advent to office and the opening of the session, various Ministers have had their attention drawn to specific- areas of land, especially in the North Island awaiting nse in some such way. There can be no doubt that the land hunger exists. If, therefore, the opportunity is offered for men to talkie up holdings without the heavy capital loading inevitable when improved estates are subdivided, a. good response can be expected jto Ibe followed by an acceleration of that settlement and development process the country needs so badly. The favourable reaction on the general level of prosperity is assured, the conquest of unemployment is promised by this means more sui’ely than by any other that could be suggested. The scheme as sketched in the Financial Statement is exceedingly hopeful, and its practical application to existing circumstances will bo eagerly anticipated by all who appreciate tine importance of the issues involved.