Ngaroma’s Plight Explained

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 37, 6 May 1927, Page 3

Ngaroma’s Plight Explained

ECONOMIC WORK IMPOSSIBLE CALL FOR RELIEF APPEAL TO MR. HOLLAND (From Our Oxen Correspondent.) HAMILTON, Thursday. “My income this year has been £25 8s 2d. That is all I have had to live on. I hold a freehold unencumbered section, for which I paid 30s an acre. I have been refused advances or a refund of purchase money, while the valuation of land around me has been reduced to 7s 6d. “I have a wife and four kids to support. When 1 asked what to do 1 was told I had better move out of the district.’' Typical of the plight of some of the Ngaroma settlers were these two instances related to Mr. Harry Holland, M.P., leader of the Labour Party, at Hamilton this afternoon, when a number of the settlers placed their grievances before him.

Mr. Milner stated that the sections were balloted for in 1912 and in 1914 complaints were made by settlers in respect of stock losses on the land. He wanted to repudiate the suggestion that the settlers went on to the block with the knowledge that it was bushsick, but stated that the Crown knew it. The settlers only fully realised in the last five years that the land was bush-sick, and what bush sickness was. After many representations one settler was granted a change of land, but the wrong of it was that at the end of the war the block he had vacated was opened for settlement for nine different returned soldiers, though the Department knew it was bushAN IMPOSSIBILITY They did not think there was any possibility of dealing with the land economically. According to the report of the Deteriorated Lands Commission, twelve farms at the entrance to the block might be saved, but the rest of the block was absolutely hopeless and should be abandoned. The visit of a State Advances officer to the district would not relieve the settlers, as his interest would be to safeguard the mortgages held by the Department. The settlers contended that the Lands Department was directly responsible for their losses and should reimburse them. It had ignored the advice of the Agricultural Department in 1914 that the land was bush-sick and opened up an adjoining block to Ngaroma, and was still lending money on it. The attempts at rebuttal made by the Department when it stated it would not have opened up the land if it had known it was bush-sick were discounted by its opening of an adjoining block, and of letting out lands which had before been abandoned. BLAME ON GOVERNMENT The settlers’ quarrel was with the Government as a whole. They would never shirk any chance of Government investigation. The press reports of their position gave to some extent an erroneous conception. The whole block was not on the point of starvation, but the position was acute. Six or seven families were in a desperate plight, while another dozen were “dead up against it.” Others had come in with large capital and their heavy liabilities had been wiped off, but they were being beaten year by year, and could see the inevitable results which would attend if they attempted to carry on. MYTHICAL RELIEF Of the £38,000 stated by Mr. McLeod to have been granted in relief, £25,000 wi)S accr-iijited for by writing down a capital value that had never existed. T\ e block was 33 miles from the railway and a block nearer the railway had been opened up a few years before at 10s an acre. The suggestion advanced by the settlers was to transfer the Waikeria reformatory tp the Ngaroma block : making available a block of good land for the struggling settlers on the present site of the institution. It had been pointed out that relatives of those confined would want easy accessibility, but what about the settlers? If the Waikeria institution was moved to Ngaroma the Government could plough and furrow the bush-sick land to its heart’s content, and it would be within 45 miles of the other prison camp.

The Forestry Department had decided that the land was too broken up for afforestation there. All the theories for overcoming bush-sickness were inapplicable to Ngaroma, because it was not ploughable country/. Where there were ploughable areas there was the heavy initial expense of heavy stumping. Waikeria was really the nearest land which could be made available for transfer unless private properties were bought. The settlers had to have a change of land and relief from the liabilities incurred in the Ngaroma block. *

Some of the settlers held the opinion that the Government was trying “to freeze them out.” HELP TO GET REDRESS

A sympathetic hearing was given the settlers’ case by Mr. Holland, who undertook to do everything possible to obtain redress for them. In the meantime he advised them to “try and stick it out,” as they had to live somewhere.