REPLY TO CRITICS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12616, 29 November 1926, Page 6

REPLY TO CRITICS

-*— LAND POLICY DEFENDED HON A. D. M'LEOD RESENTS ATTACKS ASSISTING THE SMALL SETTLER 111 answer to the “New Zealand Herald’s” article calling him “New Zealand’s Chief Pessimist,” the Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister for Lands, made the following reply to “The Times”:— “The Press controversy in regard to land settlement has been carried to the point where it is necessary to get down to first principles. I have no reason to complain of the treatment meted out to me by the Press generally. As a publio man I am quite prepared to accept fair criticism. My fight is specially with the ‘New Zealand Herald’ and those who have echoed its views. The policy of the ‘Herald’ is to throw open the large areas of unoccupied Crown lands in the Auckland province, while the policy of the Government is to consolidate as far as possible the position of the many hundreds of settlors who are battling against tremendous odds on similar lands and on swamp areas throughout tho province mentioned. All tho money which the Government lias been able to borrow through the Advances to Settlers and other sources has been and still is being used for this purpose. SUPPORT OF PRACTICAL FARMERS “In this policy tho Government has the support of every practical farmer prepared to sign his name, while the policy of the ‘Herald’ is backed up by land agents and those who wish to unload on the general taxpayer of the country thousands upon thousands of acres of second and third-class lands, the owners of which are apparently not prepared to spend a shilling in tho development of the land. “I have before me a list of owners of over 100,000 acres of land similar to that under discussion which has at different times been offered to the Government for purchase for close settlement purposes, and in that list appears an area of 8000 acres offered in tho name of persons who I understand are closely associated with the ownership of the “New Zealand Herald.’ I had no intention of bringing tho names of private persons into this controversy; but th« ‘Herald’ has gone a littlo too far in its most recent attask upon me. “While retaining the position of Minister for Lands for this Dominion I will consider it my first duty to do what I can towards assisting the small settler, who to-day is having a hard struggle, and at the same time pi'otect the pxiblie purse against those who are prepared to foist land upon the Crown at what in my opinion is three or four times its presentday value.”