LAND SETTLEMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1015, 4 July 1930, Page 10

LAND SETTLEMENT

GOVERNMENT’S POLICY OUTLINED MR. E. A. RANSOM’S ADDRfc s

lII St.’.VS ParUamcikar, P r , PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Thar," A comprehensive survey ot the ernment's activities in land settles, and the improvement of land forseJtk meat was given during the AddreuiReply debate today by the Minister,, Lands, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, claimed that the Government doing what the Reform Party only spoken of. namely developing developed land. He said that legislation would w brought down this session to ew.o those men engaged on the w o rh 0 < breaking in the land to take it up s., thus help to relieve um mp10ym,,,.The Land Laws Amendment Act, lW he said, had marked a new era forth,! Dominion in land settlement and thUnited Party had honoured its pled t I, as far as possible to the people. 7%. act had provided financial assistant for those holding or taking up hrr. had given new hope to settlers had not sufficient security for §**•• advances, and had provided oppo-! tunities for men handicapped by of capital. It had also helped to re lieve unemployment. Already the Government had posed of 2,51 ft Crown holdings, ah tenures, comprising 545,000 acres. Tl« real test of a settlement policy the number of new rural holdings an' the cost. The actual figures to May 20 wereNew sections offered, 491; n ew se». tions selected, 46!>; new area offeree 159,000 acres; ne 1 area selected, 106,000 acres: average cost a settle: £1.277. It was expected that bT July 31 that a further 161 entire]new sections would have been offend and the number of sections would bt increased as the work of the advisorr committees progressed.

MONEY ALREADY ADVANCED The present Government was pi*. Using the policy of developing productive Crown lands that Refont had talked about. Survey work h»d been put in hand preparatory to settlement and 12 advisory committees were taking stock of all unselected Crowland for the information of the DeTei! opment Board, which had advanced £17,500 to settlers holding or takaup undeveloped Crown land and hid authorised £ 23.000 for prior develojment of three blocks of Crown land The Ngakuru block of 2,200 aerts near Rotorua had £12.000 expending. on it authorised to date and 1,000 sea already had been scrubbed and burnt.. Five hundred acres would be sown is the spring and 500 next auttum. The block had already been divided i-T----to 200 acre sections, and 100 acts of each section would be grassed. Tie estimated cost an acre was: Cleaner and cultivation, £4 Is; fertilisers, £2; grass seed. £1 15s; total £7 Ife. The land was expected to carry a cct to 2J acres. At the Te Kauwhata wattle area there were 1,000 acres to provide eigir. sections, and the expenditure to date totalled £ 10.000. The land was bfing cleared by relief workers unde contract. There was a 35 yean' growth of wattle and the cost woeid be heavy, but the land would be used for dairing. The net cost was estimated at £22 an acre, and posts aid firewood -would be sold. To date 12* acres had been cleared and plough*! and 4SO would be cleared, ploughed ini sown by next spring. EXPERIMENTAL BLOCK In the Eayerneld block on the Wca Coast of the South Island, consisting of 250 acres of pakihi land, an important experiment was being «m----ducted and £I,OOO had been authorised for improvement work. If the expern.ent were successful 43.000 acres d land now lying idle could be brought into use. The leader of the 1.-.bour Part?, Mr. H. E. Holland, compb-nt f ot the small grant for the experiment. Other areas were beinz inve.-tigated'y the advisory committees at the Tapwae block ot 3,350 acres, of which two-thirds was unimproved milM land. Clearing and grassing wotli be put in band at an early date and also reading and subdivisional feting. Buildings on the block would h* provided for the workers, and it J *= anticipated that a community would he established soon with facilities for a school. Mr. Ransom said that he would see. legislative authority this -ession t* enable men who break in land to able to take it up and settle it. «• said that the best results were tow obtained from a selection among the men who carried out v--development work and a form of SJ® settlement in this respect would carried out. _