The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1920. TO SPEED UP SETTLEMENT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3577, 13 September 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1920. TO SPEED UP SETTLEMENT.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ”

Last week Mr R. W. Smith,, Member for Waimarino, made an appeal in the House for increased land settlement in the electorate which he represents, and as his electorate extends very nearly to the Taihape Borough boundary, Mr Smith’s appeal is of considerable interest to, Taihape people, more especially so as the • Hoq. Mr f Guthirie seeded (disposed to favourably and sympathetically view*his contentions. Of course, particular reference was made to the need of settling the huge area or Crown land between the township of Waimarino and Te Kuiti, but reference was also made to the need for settlement elsewhere, and it is be-i yond question that huge areas of country hereabout are seriously blocking the way of progress. An important feature of Mr Smith’s speech on the subject was that, in support of an innovation in clearing the land of standing timber. He urged that belts of bush should have boundaries .defined and that they should be set apart for co-operative sawmilling purposes. Any body of workers that might be formed, to apply for any block of bush, to set ijip their own mill and work.the timber entirely in their own interests. As the Minister seemed disposed to assist co-operative sawmilling of that nature it is sincerely to be hoped that Mr Smith will persists in keeping the Department up to a quick realisation of the scheme. But by far the most important part of what Mr Smith had to say whiPe on the land question v was that urging an innovation in securing settlement in a fraction of the usual time taken. There are very largo areas of unsurvej’ed land in Mr Smith’s electorate, and if, owing to the shortage of surveyors and Crown Land Rangers, settlement is to be held back until definite and detailed surveys arc made and final reports furnished, many years will elapse before the land can be dealt with for settling either soldiers or civilians upon it. There is no valid reason, Mr Smith thinks, why flying surveys should not be made and settlers then allowed to select and occupy, and it seems that such a course provides the only solution of the difficulty experienced in rapidly bringing idle Crow?] Lands under cultivation. If the Crown Lands between Waimarrno and Te Kuiti, are available to practicable rapid settlement in this way. and that immense area of land known as the Wanganui River Trust Lands, but which are now in the hands of the Lands Department, can almost at once be made available for soldier settlement by the adoption of Mr Smith’s suggestion, the progress of development of land that many people have hitherto fought shy of will be such as to place Waimarino people under a never-ending obligation to their Member in Parliament for the hugely increased value he has been the means of putting upon every inch of land in the county. With the materialisation of the odoption of Mr Smith’s proposals for settling" the land between. Waimarino and Te Kuiti, the whole Main Trunk territory between Taihape and Hamilton will be benefited It would prove of inestimable value to the people of Taimarunui, and, no doubt,' Taumarunui business people will not be slow in realising tho advantages that must accrue to tlffem from such rapid . settlement. W4‘ say that Waimarino people, the Borough of Taumarunui, and settlers right on to Te Kuiti should make

every effort to secure the adoption by the Ministry of Lands of Mr Smith’s proposal. The Member for Waimarino has a long and intimate experience of back country lands; and of their settlement, and when he seriously discloses a scheme for rapidly and effectively settling that class of back country that scheme may be thoroughly depended upon as being practicable. He has spent the best years of his life in subduing the bush and converting the land to man’s best use, and few men arc belter able to propose practical schemes for rapid settlement than Mr Smith is. There is already cause for hopeful optimism that the Minister of Lands will fall in with Mr Smith’s scheme, for it is hardly thinkable that land settlement will be allowed to virtually come to a standstill because of a shortage of surveyors and Crown Land Bangers. There are dependable indications that the Hon. Mr Guthrie is striving to do the utmost possible in having idle Crown Lands brought into the producing state, and, if in his Ministerial career, he only succeeded in settling the expanse of territory under notice 'it is questionable whether he would not have- rendered the Dominion better service than any Minister that has preceded him. He will have set an example for those who come after him in short cut methods of increasing the exports to an extent and in a- way hitherto unthought ofi The timber famine will be relieved, and the taxation burden upon laud — that which farmers are conscious of a? well as that which most are not yet conscious of—will be spread over a wider area and distributed over an increased number of farmer- taxpayers. The flying survey scheme is a practical scheme because an extremely practical man has urged its adoption. No other suggestion has yet been made that would cause increase of production to commence at once, and expand so rapidly as to make itself felt in an early Increase of the country’s exports and in the country’s revenue. The Hon. Mr Guthrie may yet be the means of redeeming the old, old promise in connection with “Settlement and still more settlejnent. ” Mr Smith only applied his flying survey proposal to' soldier settlement of the Wanganui River Trust land, but it seems that it is ‘as applicable to all other soldier settlement, if not to civilian settlement, but we do not see why it should not be applied under the present extreme stress of circumstances to both.