LAND AND THE MEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 743, 16 August 1929, Page 10

LAND AND THE MEN

MR. PARRY URGES NEW SETTLEMENT

PUMICE POSSIBILITIES

(THE SEN’S Parliamentary A’*..PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thun,' -We’ve got good land and mt . All we want is a Governmen* with the grit and determination to its Job. The only way out of , h ! difficulty in this country i s |, n ! settlement.”

So said Mr. W. E. Parry (Auckland Centra!) in the House of Hep reseat/ tives tonight in urging upon the Got eminent to take action in some eoa prehensive scheme of land settlemenAs a result of his investigation* c , the last 12 months, he said, h e be lieved there were wonderful possibflj. ties in the pumice lands of Zealand. He had met farmers a - Futaruru who had had a hard ban without help from the Governtaec' These men were manifestations 0 ; their hard struggles with the element and they had made good. Mr. Pu~v felt pleased with, and proud of me body of men he met. They hid proved, without a shadow of doubt that pumice land could be brought it to cultivation. With that class of laid being developed Mr. Parry believe that there could be no need for thon ands of unemployed. A great deal had been heard from experienced farmers who said that a certain class of man wa3 needed to make good on the land, Mr. Pam continued. That was dangerous pn. chology. It made men feel that they could not make good and p'reven e<! many from going on the land. y_ eß should be encouraged to go on h« land and pumice land should no: be given over to tree plantations bv the Forestry Department, but should be kept for farming, so that unemplove) could be placed on the land. Talk of placing university men oa the laud was all rot. in his opinion and he cited Matamata, with the big gest dairy factory in the world, and land which was once condemned and which had been brought to its presen' state by miners who had had no previous experience in farming. To speak of getting the right kind ot man was all balderdash. Mr. Parry had waited for the Minister of Lands, the Hon. G. W. Forbes to put forward some scheme of sett!? ment. The idea was not to place one or two here and there, but to put thousands of unemployed on the land. The Government should be game enough to give the Minister oi Lands 100,000 acres of land anc let him settle 400 or 500 men on it. Thai was a solution for unemployment. Mr. Parry said he was growing tired and old waiting for something tu be done. It could be done and would be done. If the present Government did not do it another Government would The House need not make any mistake about that. H e concluded by hopini; that the £5.000,000 for land settlement would be used for breaking State land in.

Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) agreed that there were vast possibilities lor the development of pumice lands and he hoped the Prime Minister would see that settlers there were granted assistance by the State Advances Department. Government aid had been denied these settlers for some jean on the ground that the land was not suitable. Mr. Harris said there had been a great change in the feeling ot th: Dominion. The optimism that had followed the United Party’s promises of cheap money had been replaced by pessimism, and already there was talk of a change of Government. The debate will be continued tomorrow.