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Putaruru Press, Volume I, Issue 5, 15 November 1923, Page 2

THE complaint from Tokoroa a? to the operation? of the new State Advancer .scheme a? revealed there, give? food for very serious consideration. Men of small capital attiacLeu b\- the lower valuation of unimproved land, and believing- that they can make a farm for themselves cheaper than they can buy one, g;o into the back country. They have a hundred ov two pounds, perhaps, but their greatest asset is their experience and their power for hard work. T hey build, plough and sow, and usually have money for their first moderate stocking, but now comes the pinch; the reserve of capital is gone and the income from the farm is still too small to support the owner and his family, let alone continue improvements. Grass is growing, but requires top-dressing to make it permanent; or, it may be, there is a mile of fencing- to put up or a cowshed to build. Here it is that the name of the Government Advances to Settlers Department lias a hopeful sound in the ears of the hard-worked and worried settler. He sends in his application and encloses his hard-to-spare pound fee. “Surely,” he thinks,

“ niv bit of capital and my years of hard work should leave a margin for Government security,” but so often disappointment is the result. The applicant receives a bare, bald refusal. The result is loss —loss to the settler himself and loss to the country. For every one cow now on the farm there would have been two. The effect of money and labour already put into the farm will be to a certain extent retarded and work in th 2 future will be done at a disadvantage. If, asks the hard-pressed settler, small co-operative dairy companies have grown into big concerns by the combined strength oc the whole helping the weaker supplier in the day of hi.- need, should it not pay our Government to build up their country's prosperity by a more liberal policy of advances to settlers?