THE PUTARURU PRESS. THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1929. A FIRST STEP.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 280, 21 March 1929, Page 4

THE PUTARURU PRESS.

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1929. A FIRST STEP.

’Phone 28 - - - P.O. -Box 44 GfSce - Oxford Place

THE Putaruru Chamber of Com- ' merce is again to be congratulated, i The hard work of its members in en- : deavcuring to promulgate construe- ; tive proposals for land settlement has borne further fruit. At the recent Land Settlement Conference held in Wellington, the suggestion that local advisory committees should be appointed to supervise particular settlement schemes has been adopted. This suggestion has been repeatedly advocated in the Press, for, as ve have previously pointed out, it is the height of folly to place men on the typo of land which now remains for settlement, and leave them to struggle along without a guiding hand, and in ignorance of local conditions. Gum lands, swamp lands, pumice lands, all need different and particular treatment, and if this treatment is not forthcoming settlement of these areas will prove a fiasco. In regard to the pumice lands records in the possession of the Putaruru Chamber show conclusively that this class of country is the cheapest and most easily worked, as it is the largest, of any areas yet remaining for settlement. The returns, also, are far and away ahead of any other such country, and if settlement in these areas is tackled in the manner, and under the conditions suggested by the organisers of the local effort, then some hundreds of thousands of acres, equivalent, as one exponent put it, to a new province, will be added to the dairying districts of the North Island. Organised on the right lines some thousands of unemployed can be provided with work, in roading and bringing in pumice areas, and the bulk of these workers ultimately settled, thus ensuring them a gloriout heritage, from which the nightmare of unemployment has been automatically banished. The Chamber has had a stubborn ■fight, but it now has the Matamata County Council, the largest and most influential body in the district, more solidly than ever behind it. With 400,000 acres of land eminently suitable for settlement right at the door- , step of the town, it is to be hoped the Chamber will, after this latest victory, keep at its proposals, which have been advocated for the past year, with renewed vigour.