The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1918. RETURNED SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 August 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17, 1918. RETURNED SOLDIER SETTLEMENTS.

(With which is Incorporate*? The Taihape Post and WalDMiEl-ao News).

It is theoritically correct to assume that a man having no previous experience of farming who takes up laud must be a failure, but any person having a long and wide experience in the settlement of New Zealand knows that such is by no means borne out in practice. There is no occasion to depend upon this district for evidence of this, although we know that among the most successful are men who came from the work-bench and counter on to a farm. A man in Taihape who many years ago, when the, Ballanee-Seddon land settlements laws were in full operation, acted as secretary for. some half-a-dozen most successful special settlement associations, and who has still by him, minutes of meetings and lists of names of the men in the

various associations, giving their addresses and previous occupations, has had the postulate that success only goes with experience blown completely to rags. His documents prove that drapers assistants have given the best evidence that previous experience, however beneficial, is not at all essential. In five special settlement associations, consisting, collectively, of just upon one hundred men, there is not one man, even, that had any experience in farm work, or had ever worked on a. farm. The "nearest to farming any of them had gone was bush'f ailing,' nawying and gardening, but these constituted the great minority; by far the bulk of the special settlers were recruited ■ from shops, offices, and workrooms, and even an ordinary newspaper man who had done, no other previous work except everyday journalism, is to-day a leading New Zealand farmer. Another equally successful man, whose name figures amongst comparatively rich men in the North W.airarapa, Avas rescued from street-sweeping. Several printers have turned out to be good farmers, but, strange though it may scorn, men from the drapery, or clothing counter have been markedly successful as farmers. After studying those old special settlement reports and lists we have been led to wonder how many long-standing farmers at the present time there are in New Zealand who ' had any experience of farming when they first took up land in this country. In addition to those who joined special settlement associations there are quite a lot of those who entered the farming arena ;as deferred payment selectors, and we view with utmost admiration the really glorious ! successes that are still before us in j the splendidly finished article turned j out by liberal land settlement laws; j but we cannot understand the cry that ' is being made, joined in by very rich land-owners to-day who were as innocent of farming experience when they took up their first holding as any town schoolboy. This subject is forced upon our notice by a statement of what our Government has accomplished up to date in settling returned soldiers on land. It is seen at a glance that the cry for only the best land in the country is a mistake as most of the failures come from the agricultural and dairying areas, while on the other hand none, or a negligible few como from purely pastoral and grazing land. It seems obvious that men with no experience must fail when put to accomplish what is next to imposible, and whtA many men who have not the capacity for a smattering of scientific learning have not proved successes at after nearly a lifetime of experience. There are men plugging away at wheat growing after years of indifferent success, but these men have no idea of the scientific side of grain growing; they cannot under-

Btoad ' that a kaow«ldgo, however lifctls, ot the sciences of botany and •chemistry ,i* fr»«htM in attaining the utmost in. agriculture, therefore it ia in agricultural settlement of soldiers that will be .found a great preponderance of failures. In fact, it seems to us that the authorities are simply inviting failure in putting men with no experience in cereal-growing upon Soldier-Settlement land taken with that object in view. The most marked success comes from pastoral and grazing lands, that is just what anyone versed in settlement would have predicted. The old-time special settlers/ after clearing their land and putting afire over it, sowed grass-seed, and it was this settlement that brought dairying companies into existence, and gave the first fillip to tho butter export trade; it was those men who did not look for four shillings a pound for their butter fat either; they had to be satisfied with a less number of pence per pound often times. As those men were the pioneers of the butter industry, so soldier settlement in the very near future should mark another distinct era in its progress and extension. We have urged hitherto that it was not advisable to pay high prices for agricultural land; that putting men with no agricultural knoweldge could not be expected to use it to. tho best and most profitable advantage, and now we have (Ministerial evidence of the correctness of our contentions. On purely pastoral soldier settlements success is assured; but will the Governn/ent benefit by experience of results? It seems very doubtful whether, they will; like the. man and the donkey in the fable, they are being tossed and swayed by confiding advice and opinions, whereas, if they would- realise that the lands of this country were largely settled by men with no previous experience of farming, and that, perforce, every new settler had to commence with grazing, they should have no doubt about what class of land is going to furnish the greatest meed of success, and" that it is fallacy to suppose that only men with experience can become valuable national 'assets in production. There ! 'is a' growing cause for alarm in the neglect of the' Government in bringing settlement experience l: ' to bear on the absorption of returning men into profitable' producing indus-. tries. It seems that every man who farms a hundred or two acres of land is a self-constituted expert on land settlement, while, in all probability he has neither knowledge or experience of how our rich, highly favoured, country was originally settled. The subject is too important to be settled by guessing, and the blowing of political winds, and wo s venture to predict that farmers will yet regret that they did not urge on settlement of men on the land in time for them to become producers of some value before the great burden of taxation falls upon them which is as sure ,to come ;as that winter follows summer..