The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1918. WHAT A MINISTER THINKS.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 June 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, JUNE 25, 1918. WHAT A MINISTER THINKS.

(With which is Incorporated The Xalhapo Post and Walis-arl-ao News).

A Wellington telegram, published yesterday, states that Mr. Guthrie, the new Minister for Lands, is, with the experience of a practical farmer, speeding up the efforts of the Land Department to place Returned soldiers on the land; hut,, is it the practical experience of the farmer or the genius of an energetic, honest organiser that is most needed to satisfactorily and successfully deal with this Returned Soldier question? The conversion of soldiers into farmers must proceed with a dual object; if all that is aimed at is to settle soldiers and then leave them to struggle on regardless of the time involved in making profitable producers the settlement is a failure. We believe Mr. Guthrie, in every respect, means well, and we are confident that he will dq his best, but ho., one will accuse him of being a heaven-born organiser, a man with the outstanding capacity to even make any sort of showing with such a colossal task that seems to have fallen upon him. Men, and particularly some Ministers, talk glibly about soldiner settlement, as though it were a matter of little moment, and still less difficulty; but let any capable business man give the subject a minute’s thought and huge difficulties loom up like mountain's' in the way. If the oncoming taxation is not to bring disaster and famine in its train settlement and production must be considered together in any scheme that is undertaken. No doubt the tyro farmers when once started will need the help of the practical Farmer-Min-ister, but it is equally important, if not absolutely essential, that they should be started on lands close to a market which will return the best possible results for their work and effort. The Minister has just returned from a tour of inspection in the 'Auckland district, and he tells his interviewer that he is hoping to make opportunities for Returned Soldiers on some of the good lands of the north, and to enlist them in the great army of producers that must bear the major part of the burdens that will fall upon the Dominion after the war. Is it not enough that soldiers should have fought for the land and won it, without subjecting them to another enlistment which involves exile from their pre-war homes and people? There may be- good lauds in the North or Auckland, but there are better lands around Taihape, many square miles of it, and men who have returned to Taihape are perplexed to know why they should be exiled from homes, and from the friends they were reared amongst, sent up North and put upon laud that there are ample people to occupy it, that way, who understand it, and could naturally work it to Grach better advantage. Will not the new Minister take a more humane and less cruel view' of soldier settlement than his predecessor was capable of, and j endeavour to settle the men without | compelling them to decide between no-land and exile? We see to-day, returned men who fought .and recovered from wounds, snatched from death almost as by a miracle, driving carts, doing any odd jobs about, who ought to have been given a hundred acres of land in their ow r n district and fifteen or twnety cows to start with. When labour is more plentiful and the odd jobs become more scarce what is to become of these men who fought and suffered that which was worse than being killed outright? We know that after Waterloo a law was passed making it legal for discharged soldiers to beg; how much more humane is our Government than the soulless British government that enacted such a measure? Our Government leaves men who only just escaped with their lives to go seeking odd jobs and driving carts, or it proposes to en. list them in an army to be exiled from their people and homes and sent away to break in the lands of the roadless North, or to languish on the pumice

and sand of the Bay of Plenty. Minister after Minister, year in and year out, pass through Taihape on the pretext of soldier' settlement/ why are they SfO blind while passing through this district, or why do they turn their faces away from miles of pasturage hereabout that can hardly be overstocked at any season? Mr Guthrie says his difficulty is not with tne returned farmer, but with townsmen imbued with a new love for the opeß life who is reluctant to mount the office stool or resume his old place behind the counter, and he has his eye on several large areas up north, which, he thinks, could be adapted to the men who wish to take up rural occupations. Is it any wonder that Returned Soldiers are dubious, and view with suspicion the* protestations of Ministerial concern for their welfare? This is the position: The Minister haa his eye on some land somewhere “ho thinks” can be adapted for the settle, ment of soldiers who do not wish to return to offices and workshops, while the returned men themselves, think that a few hundreds of acres could well be spared from the huge areas, amounting to tens of thousands of acres, in the possession of one or two men, in the neighbourhood the soldiers were reared in, and in which their parents, relatives and lifelong friends live, and so render their exile in the North quite unnecessary. We do not urge that any man, more especially pioneer settlers, should be subjected to injustice, at the same time we canont help thinking there are some in this neighbourhood who would willingly help the Government in its exceedingly difficult *task of soldier settlement by offering a few hundreds of acres each to save the men * who fought and afibut gave their lives that their possessions might be secured to them, from having to go about look ing for odd jobs, and from the in. evitable drift to which such intermittent and precarious occupation must lead. There is no difference of opinion about the shortage of man-power; that the present army of producers will find afterUvar taxation to be at crushing point; that it is essential to save Small and medium farmers from ruin the army of should be hugely reinforced; that there must be an increase in the number of small holdings; that the increase of settlement is very urgent; flat cultivation must be much more intensive in the future than in the past; all these are subjects of advocacy by all shades of political opinion, and the Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand strongly stressed these -views at the annual meeting of proprietors of the Bank the other day. We contend that if there are very large land-holders aroupd Taihape who are patriotically anxious to assist the Government, they could do much better in own interests by coming forward with their offers now than by waiting till the inevitable compulsion is adopted. Prompt decision, of this nature would materially make the Ministerial way easier in addition .to -saving our returned warriors from such exile as the Minister is driven to suggest. As Mr. Harpld Beauchamp told his fellow bank shareholders, values of every description must fall, and money cannot be prevented from appreciating. People will insist upon the possession of means to live and the Government that, fails in this respect will be given short shrift. British land-owners and manufacturers are handling this subject sanely so as to avoid a fianancial chaos that would broadcast ruin in all quarters; let us do similiarly in New Zealand.