The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, AUGUST 7th, 1916. LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 7 August 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, AUGUST 7th, 1916. LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

(With which is incorporated The Tal hape Post and "Waimarino Newß.)

The settlement of returned soldiers is a subject that, if there' is such a quality left in human nature as gratitude —a concern for the well-being of those who have risked their lives that we may be free and occupy our lands and homes in security—should overshadow every other question in New Zealand now that it is certain the war must end in our favour. Are we going to allow these saviours of their Empire to go herding here and there, drifting from bad to worse owing to cruel, callous, inhuman ne/g'Ject. It is ■all very well to talk about everything being done, but. the fact remains that this pressing question has already got, with present doings, almost, if not quite, out of hand. With the "dribs and drabs" that .have come back to us, finding! employment for them has got into arrears, and we only return to the question because neither the country, its Parliament, or the Advisory Board of Patriotic Societies seem to be malting that provision that should be plain to any organising mind is pressingly necessary. We search newspapers for reports of prepress in this direction, but disappointment after disappointment results. What little is being done seems more like an apology than honest, intentional desire to absorb tne thousands of brave fellows we have sent away with all sorts of high-falutin promises and well-wishes, into our civil life again. We read of bush land down at the far end of the South Island at a few pounds Per acre being under consideration of the Land Purchase Board; it is needless to point out what the life of a returned soldier would be on such land. Then there is that huj3e block of land north of the farthest point boats reach ,cn the Wanganui River, in the far back of tne Retaruke Survey District, composed or bush and fern. The land i d under la u control of the Wanganui Trust Boaru, and what its quality, or its suitability for farming is we have no direct knowledge, but we do know that it is so ; far away that even the greatest sufferer from land hunger cannot be tenipti ed to tackle it. The Board has for i years been trying to get somebody to take it up, and hag offered it on tempt- ;: ing terms, but nobody responds, ana l now the opportunity comes; we have >a lot «r£ returning! soldiers that land is

wanted for; beggars must not be.

choosers, and the Wanganui River Board cordially endorses the proposals to turn the blood-stained Anzacs from Gallipoli and the Somme on to this block that nobody else can be induced to touch on any terms. The land may be very good for all we know, but the circumstances in no way bear out that suggestion; besides it is too far away from any market; it would indeed be exiling our fighters to put them there, and we contend that these men should only be put on land that the pioneer has had in occupation for some time and brought it into some sort of reasonable working order. To put them on such land is inviting failure to an extreme, for the men might stand a year of profitless hard labour with no returns, then be glaa to quit at any price, leaving it to tne land shark and aggregator. Why there is such perverseness exhibited over this settlement of returned soldiers is indeed difficult to see. While there arc huge areas of land in the possession, on lease from natives or the Crown, of

one man, within la very few miles from centres of population and good markets, the National Government is actually in negotiation for acquiring, that block beyond settlement up the Wanganui River, that no one else can be induced to take at any price. There are huge areas around Taihape that land hungerers' mouths are watering for, and yet our Government negotiates for this Wanganui land away in the almost unknown back-blocks, which is still in its virgin state of bush and fern. What Patriotic societies are doing t.odiers is a question to approach, with some hesitation. The Central Boare does not 'at present exhibit anything of a constructive policy in this connection. The Chairman, the other day, in discussinjg 1 returned soldiers' settlement said, no man ought to go on tne land without five years previous training. He added, a man required more training' to make a farmer than to

make a successful lawyer. It looks as though a body composed of lawyers and gentlemen were setting up something distinctly opposed to practiceand experience. The writer acted as secretary, a good many years-ago, for quite a number of special settlement societies, formed under New Zealand's then beneficent land laws. In thar. capacity he rounded up, among others, hard working men who had been street sweeping} 'and gutter cleaning for the Masterton Borough Council, men, among others, who had never worked anywhere but as town labourers, In shops and works of one kind and another, and he still h'a s ample cause to feel some pride in his achievementts. Many of these special settlers arc among the most successful farmers to day, and not a few are in the ranks of those who are opposing politically the men w r ho made the laws that made their success as farmers possible. They are (good farmers, however, and that is the all-important fact that constitutes a complete answer to the suggestion that five years' training is needful before puttiirg) returned soldiers on the land. Man is born with the instinct to look for his living off the land, as much as a rabbit is born with the instinct to burrow, and no matter for how many years rabbits may bo bred in a hutch, or how many generations man may be sweating in workshops, that instinct can never be killed or exterminated. Let no sophistry divert us from our duty to the returning soldiers; land is wanted that they can live on, not on which to exile them. This is a question to which we may return again and again without making any apolcfgy; our duty to our fighting men is quite plain and paramount.