NO FORCED SETTLEMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 434, 16 August 1928, Page 1

NO FORCED SETTLEMENT

GOVENMENT’S LAND POLICY CAPITAL AND DEMAND NEEDED (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, To-day. Land settlement could not be forced. If the demand and capital for it were not available the Government would only become involved in another writing-down process should it put men on the land at uneconomic values. To this effect the Hon. O. J. Hawken this evening explained the Govern - men’s land policy. “The demand for land is at present so small that even though good roaded Crown areas have been offered free they have not been taken up,” said Afr. Hawken to-day. To force land into use when there was neither demand nor capital for it was simply to invite disaster. The opposition in Parliament had apparently failed to learn the lesson of recent years. “We don’t want to face another proposition like that of settling the returned soldiers,” said the Minister, stating that the idle lands, while they would undoubtedly be taken up in time, should not be forced on the market. All the talk by the Opposition was merely a “stunt” intended to force the Government’s hand. “Every endeavour has been made by Labour members to force the Government by appealing to the public and to people who know very little of the tnatter into a form of settlement of Crown Lands,” said the Hon. A. r>. McLeod, Minister of Lands. “That is not an economic proposition. I am satisfied the time will come when a many of these lands will be settled. The development must be slow, however, and a great deal more first have to be spent on the Public works required.”