THE PUTARURU PRESS. 'Phone 28 – – – P.O. Box 44 Office – – – – Oxford Place THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1929. MINISTERIAL VISIT.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 273, 31 January 1929, Page 4

THE PUTARURU PRESS. 'Phone 28 - - - P.O. Box 44 Office - - - - Oxford Place THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1929. MINISTERIAL VISIT.

THE announcement made in another i column with reference to a visit by ! three memoers oi tile Cabinet to the Putaruru district, will give general satisfaction to those who have realised the tremendous handicap farmers and others in this portion of the Dominion have laboured under. Those who have been battling- hard for the removal of these disabilities and have an intimate knowledge of the position, know that it is not exaggerating the position to say that the great progress which has been made in this locality has been in spite of Departments of State, and not with that assistance, such as falls to the lot of more favoured communities.

Adversity is often the mother of invention, and as a result of the trials put upon the locality, the Putaruru Chamber of Commerce, which has taken the lead in promoting the movement for an alleviation of the present position in which farmers find themselves, mostly in regard to financial matters, lias evolved a scheme for the efficiency of the district as a whole, which is somewhat new so far as requests to Governments are concerned, and which, if taken up, may produce happy results for other districts.

This district has nothing to hide, and any disability which may be natural to the virgin soil is fast being overcome by the hard pioneering of local settlers, but at its worst, it is nothing compared to the blight which a greater local area suffers from as a result of the anachronic and red tape methods of State Departments, and also Land Boards, which * have clearly outlived their period of usefulness as at present constituted. In their efforts, the local Chamber of Commerce has the unanimous support of six other local bodies and all the cards are being tabled. If a sim- > ilar attitude is taken up by the Ministers concerned, then success is assured. There can be no possible doubt as to the justice of local claims, and if a public enquiry can be obtained into these, victory must result. Such enquiry must, however, be a public one, for too long have local settlers had to rest content with pious phrases and studied departmental phraseology, which means nothing, promises nothing, and is only used to placate and quieten a clamour for the remedy of a grievance for which their methods have no cure.