The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. THURSDAY, APRIL 34, 1927. THE MUDDLE OF LAND SETTLEMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 20, 14 April 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. THURSDAY, APRIL 34, 1927. THE MUDDLE OF LAND SETTLEMENT

IN all this valiant talk in Auckland and elsewhere about the duty of the State to provide farms for thousands of farmers there is one stark fact which is evaded by eloquent enthusiasts. It is this: One-seventh of the total value of production goes annually to the payment of interest on mortgages. What does that crucial fact mean in practice and in terms of simple arithmetic? It means that the harrassed producers, who have to work all the time against odds and political nonsense have to earn over & 16,000,000 a year to pay interest on mortgages before they make a shilling for themselves. Is it surprising that the average farmer envies or resents the eternal cry of sheltered industrialists to the man on the land to produce more and maintain prosperity for pampered workers and a multitude of politicians and public servants? Of course, it is a lamentable thing in a country lavishly favoured by Nature that there should be within its comparatively narrow borders rather more than twenty-five million acres of unimproved occupied land —a vast wilderness that includes less than 2,500,000 acres of barren and unproductive land. Jt is a miserable record after eighty years of settlement and at least half-a-century of progressive legislation (so-called) by successive representatives of bold democratic statesmanship and political genius’. What may be done about it? Some well-intentioned men put their faith on the modern craze for leagues and other loquacious organisations; others call upon the Government that has not a spare threepenny bit to bless itself with to open up land for settlement; and a few, a courageous band of practical men, leave the pavements and concrete highways of cities and honestly try, in the old-fashioned and ill-paid way of hard work, to turn a bit of the brambly and fern-smothered wilderness into a farm plot. There :is no cause for wonder in the fact that of intelligent men everywhere are angry with a political system that shows inability or unwillingness to concentrate on one practicable scheme of development at a time and do it. Instead of that, there are endless demands for assistance, apathy and half-hearted work. It is difficult to understand why apparently shrewd business men and liighly-intelligent persons agitate for an additional huge expenditure on land settlement when it is plain to everybody* that the inflated value of broad acres merely creates a short cut to bankruptcy or misery. Where, in Heaven’s name, is there common sense in spending more public money on leading an inexpert farmer, through one gate of a mortgaged farm, while an expert agriculturist, in sheer disgust and hopelessness, is leaving the property by another gate? The whole business is ridiculous, and would be amusing if it were not tragic in its economic consequences. If land values were at a reasonable level, the present problem would solve itself without the aid of statesmen at all. What is wanted first is a more profitable market for overworked and under-paid producers. That market would be created if an industrial factory were established for every new farm. Farm and pasture on the one hand, and busy factories on the other, that is the Dominion’s requirement. That, and legislative devices for strangling the speculator.

OUR HISTORIC PLACES

THE unveiling of memorial gates to the military cemetery at Rangiriri, where lie buried the British officers and men who fell in the famous assault on the redoubt, was a ceremony of much historic significance. Where once Palceha and Maori fought in desperate conflict, Pakeha and Maori joined in prayer foi the immortal dead, their old antagonisms forever buried with the warring past. . The restoration of this burial ground was a praiseworthy action on the part of the Government; but it is only one of those good works which needed doing. New Zealand, young country as it is, has a history which is rich in incident compared with other lands of comparatively recent settlement; incidents marking epochs of discovery, war, peace and progress. It is not fitting that those places which mark the happening ot great events should be covered by the dust of disregard. There is the spot where Captain Cook landed at what Js now known as Gisborne. There is the place where the British flag was first hoisted at Akaroa; there is the area on which trod famous Pakeha and famous Maori chieftains when was signed the Treaty of Waitangi. How are they marked for the observation of those who wish to see fittingly indicated such historic sites? , , , These places are recognisable only by which, are as so many toothpicks when we consider the historic significance of the ground they stand upon. It is a poor nation that cannot adequately commemorate the great incidents in its history, and it is to be hoped that the restoration of the Rangiriri military cemetery is only the first instalment in a story of similar worthy works to be carried out by the Government.