THE PUTARURU PRESS. ’Phone 28 – – – P.O. Box 44 Office – – – – Oxford Place THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1929. SETTLING PUMICE LANDS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 272, 24 January 1929, Page 4

THE PUTARURU PRESS. ’Phone 28 - - - P.O. Box 44 Office - - - - Oxford Place THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1929. SETTLING PUMICE LANDS.

THE statements of Labour members in regard to the possibilities of pumice soil from a farming point of view are worthy of more than passing notice, more especially their suggestion that unemployed workers should be put to such work as breaking in new country.

It is pleasing- that these views should be expressed in such a quarter, and the members’ support to '..m proposals will do. their party good, for rightly or wrongly it lias earned the reputation for supporting nonpractical ideas. and for demanding that work be found for the workless in or near the towns.

The Press has all along advocated that all moneys devoted to finding work for those unfortunate enough to be without it should be devoted to productive uses and in this connection has persistently pointed out that the waste spaces of the Dominion offered the best field for such expenditure. If this view were more widely held no Government would dare spend money on or subsidise such useless proposals as are often put forward during hard times for the benefit of the unemployed, and one of the biggest handicaps to a more general acceptance of the necessity for productive work in the country in lean seasons has been, as w e have stated, the attitude of Labour leaders. We hope the Labour Party as a whole will adopt the suggestion of two of its prominent members, not necessarily in regard to the pumice areas, though they offer one of the most fertile fields for such labour, but for productive work on the land anywhere. Such work has a twofold value, for, besides providing an income for those without it, the work accomplished has a definite national benefit. If the idea is extended and such' workers are given first chance to settle on the areas brought in the benefits would be further increased from a social standpoint, and many families weakened morally through little fault of their own would be given a chance of a new and happy existence unattainable under present conditions.