SETTLING SOLDIERS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10273, 7 May 1919, Page 6

SETTLING SOLDIERS

OVER 1000 ASSISTED REPLY TO CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT POLICY. Recently Lieutenant-Colonel Cowles, president of the Returned Soldiers' Association at Master-on, was reported to have said that Government promises to soldiers were ho'u air; that soldiers couiu not get land without considerable funds or backing; also, that the Government was giving soldiers scaiiu consideration, iesterday ttie .Minister tor Iwinds <<-ho rion. U. ti. Guthrie.) dealt with, tno portion of tne statement whicu concerns his department. "it is aOKuiutely incorrect/' said the Minister,, "to say tnat tno insists upon men.'having .money and experience belore tuoy are allowed to taKe up land under tho Government scheme. it a returned, soldier is in such health and circumstances that he must lead an out-door lite, he is ,j< |*'er turned down it he applies lor land, 'the Government has never turned down such a man, even if he lias neither, money nor experience, in the eariy days ot administration, it was thought by some land, boards that it would oo unwise to ploco on laud men who had not had any farming experience, or wiio had not oven enough money to pay tno iirso naif-year's rent. But now the policy is, and for some considerable ■ time has been, to give every facility to i cquire land to any returned soldier who t hows any aptitude for tho'work he will have to do to make a success of a firming venture. in fact, tho boards m tn?ny instances are going further i;han in ordinary circumstances would be considered prudent from a business point of view. Tho Government has lever at any time made any distinction between the men without means and those with limited means or with large sums of money. Tho only qualification required by the land 'boards before lpprn-ing an application for land or for financial assistance is that the man should have had some farming experience, and be in a position to make use of tho lsnd allotted to him.

"I have had supplied.to me an unalysis of a random selection of a hundred cases in which applications ior lawl bj- returned soldiers have been granted. This shows that the financial position of the applicants was as follows: —24 of them had no capital, 47 of them had capital of less than £IOO, 22 of them had capital between £IOO and £SOO, and 7 of them had more than £SOO. "The Government has now assisted over 1000 soldier settlers to acquire rural land, whilst a considerable number of other men have been assisted to buy town residences, or have heen V'ped with advances to utilising farm land already held by them. The Government has advanced to soldiers the huge amount of £1,536,000, and this sum does not include the amount spent in the purchase of land under the Land for Settlement Act, afterwards proclaimed for soldier settlements."