The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1917. RETURNED SOLDIERS SETTLEMENT

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 5 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 1917. RETURNED SOLDIERS SETTLEMENT

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

The Executive of the New Zealand Returned Soldiers' Association has once more drawn pointed attention to the acquisition of land on which to settle our returned heroes. A meeting was held in Wellington last week, at which members from all other leading centres of the Dominion were present. This meeting carried a resolution, (1) "That land boards be prevented from acquiring any more poor land, and to put into force the 'Land for Settlement Act' to acquire small holdings of first-class land nearer to towns." (2 "That the. Association be provided with returns showing the price paid by the Government for the land; the market value before and and after sub-division; the cost to the returned soldier; that the basis of price-fixing for the soldier be stated, and what principles are - followed in deciding the fitness of the soldier applicant," Here is a body of men specially selected by their fellows in the districts in which they live for their fitness to look after the interests of th e men who have fought the Empire's battles, without giving the full sacrifice io f their lives. At this very moment we see around us men who< are compelled to sell their businesses, their farms, leave their homes and country to fight a foreign foe. They are sacrificing under compulsion, in most cases, all that was the dream or their life; they had achieved a measure of success that they must Qirow to the winds because their country needs them. What Is to be the condition of these men when they return: Are they to be left to commence igain at the bottom, competing in the demobilised crowd of searchers for the means of living, or is the Government and people going to be honest and keep their promises to these men when leaving? What is Happening to these returned men? From experience of one body of them in this district, it seems to us the case of the men is positively hopeless. They are

from any town, with no roads. They arrive in the very roughest of country that is covered with virgin forest; they .have been supplied with axes and means of bushfalling, but the health of the men only makes it posj sible to do half or quarter what a I bushfaller could do. An advance of so I much money is available to pay for •improving, which might enable them to pull through if they could get bushfallers while they did light work in town. Bushfallers are not obtainable, and as they find that class of work, combined with the rough life too much for their injured constitutions, and as the Laud Board is obdurate in the matter of rent-paying, there seems nothing else for it but to let the Board take its land baek, while they join the army of men looking for other means of getting a living. This is the sort of information that is being broadcasted, and is it surprising that men are not anxious to give up the all they have been striving to gain, to enlist and to go and fight an ungrateful people's battles. The resolution passed by the Executive of the Returned Soldiers' Association makes it plain that the sort of treatment outlined is somewhat general, b e it said to this country's shame. There is ample land for the proper settlement of all our returning boys who are fit and desire to go on the land. While the forest-clad mountains to where there is no road, many miles from any town or settlement, are given to returned men, places on which it is almost impossible for them to succeeu, there are hundreds of square miles of country dn which a good living could be got. We have a surfeit of it around Taihape, which is available at any time and almost at any price. From Karioi to Turangarere there are from 80,000 to 100,000 acres of Crown land, all close to the railway, and admirably suited for sub-division; all the Waiouru plains, land that will grow magnificent crops of oats, turnips and grass, and which will easily i carfy two sheep to the acre.' It. is needless to refer' t 0" the land hereabouts, which is available, anu would one way and another settle a few hundred men; but it is not the land near railways'and towns the Government seems to'be looking for. The Waiouru, and tlie Taihape lands alongside the railways and close to towns, taa: would sell privately at from twenty to twenty-eight pounds an acre, are evidently too good for soldier setrle-ment/-'and'illtiey; are sent back into the depths of the" virgin forest, among the mountain- tops to find sections, on which wild pigs can scarcely make a living. •. : The'Government values at £l6 ah acre'improved land that is offered to them at £25, and it is immediately sold to farmers who know its value at an average of £2 an acre more. What is the use of our railways if the Government will not settle even good quality Grown lands through which they run?- This Country

did , not '. require any fancy railway commissioner to extract money from the pockets of settlers who use the railways, but it did heed a capable business man who would be given untrammelled power to closely settle all lands through which railways run and so make them pay. The position the Government is taking up with regard to settlement of returned soldiers is no more understandable by the Executive of the Returned Soldiers' Association than it is to the ordinary settler, but the resolution it has passed may have some good effect on the Land Board. It will at least open up the whole question for discussion.