WELLINGTON TOPICS

Taihape Daily Times, 5 March 1919, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS

SOLDIER SETTLEMENT

WID E SI’KEA D DISS ATISPA CTION.

WELLINGTON, March 3. Ulricas the Governmentsoldier settlement .scheme is much maligned, it is falling far short of what was expected .from it by Parliament and the country. This, happily, is not a, party question, and critics of all political colours and sympathies arc 'Complaufing bitterly and ’oudly bf the failure of the authorities to place more attractive propositions before the potential settlers now returning from the front in considerable numbers. They have had two or three years to prepare for the demands now being made upon their resources, and yet scarcely less could have been done had they had only as many months. Land—good, bad, and indifferent—has been offered to them in abundance, but the machinery of the Purchase Board has worked so slowly and so erratically that many settlers who.jycre .anxious to quit their properties and not seeking any exorbitant prices preferred to go elsewhere for their market. A BLIND ALLEY. On paper the terms offered by the Government to the intending soldier settler are reasonable enough. He may have a choice of locality of land, of tenure, and almost of price, .But in practice the scheme does not work out so smoothly as all this might be taken to imply. A returned man may wish to acquire a piece of private land by agreement, as provided by the Act; or he may wish to take up a section of Crown land. He makes his wish known to the Department., and he is received with open arms, so to speak. Another addition to the Minister’s list of returned men settled on the land is in sight, %nd everything seems to be going as merry as the marriage boll for a month or two. Then difficulties begin to arise. The private acquisition is undesirable or the .Crown land is not ready for settlement. ■ This determination is reached in four or five months, perhaps six or seven, and in the end the applicant gives •up his enterprise in disgust.. , . j SQUARE HOLES AND ROUND PEGS This is not the case with one or two applicants only, but with acres. Very naturally the Department, for financial and other reasons, prefers to settle men on land already pur- ( chased. Some of this land, as was inevitable, is. too high in price or too low in quality, and the officers of the Department are over-inclined to look at the whole business rather from a seller’s point of view than from the buyer’s. But it stands to reason that the man who understands anything about land knows what he wants much better than do the officers of the Department, and it is obvious that the man who docs not understand is the last person who should be put upon dear or unsuitable land. Yet, in spite, of the reasonable and the obvious the proportion of surrenders is mounting up at a tremendous rate, and there is a grave danger of many thousands of potential settlers being lost to the State. WHAT IS WANTED.

The blame for what is happening' will fall as a matter of course upon the members 1 of the National Government, individually and collectively, but really it is the system and its lack of elasticity that are mainly at fault. With one or two notable exceptions the high officers of the Land Department are elderly gentlemen whose years of association with red tape and stilted routine have deprived them of initiative and enterprise, and left them with an extravagant regard for the sanctity of rules and regulations. The members of the Purchase Board, cautious and conscientious to a fault if that is possible —are the worst offenders in this respect. They move so slowly that many of the best of the opportunities that 'come their way are lost. What is wanted, in the opinion of people with practical knowledge of the facts, is the creation of a new department for this class of settlement with, a live, capable man at its head, and administered with the single purpose of promoting the best interests of the soldier and the State.