The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16. USING UNPROFITABLE LAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 265, 16 December 1909, Page 2

The Daily News THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16. USING UNPROFITABLE LAND.

New Zealand lias 1 a considerable amount of unoccupied land, much of which will never be occupied. This is suitable in a pre-eminent degree for the growth of timber. In an instructive article in the Aucklaud Herald, J. G. Haddon points out how we are neglecting a great chance in not paying more attention than we are to the utilisation of this otherwise valueless laiid and the development of an industry of far-reaching importance. He shows that in Germany ovej one quarter of the w)iole surface of land is covered with forest. Of this forest some 10,000,000 acres appear to be regularly worked, and yield a net profit of lis' per acre each year, making the enormous total of £5,500,000 annually. In addition, these wild acres give employment to nearly 100,000 people, England has latterly, passed through one of the worst periods of depression she has ever experienced. During this depression it was estimated that as many as 10 per cent, of the working population of 10,000,000 men suffered from unemployment. For the year 1900 the average amount of unemployment, taking the trade union's returns' as a guide, was 4.1 per cent, la 1907 the number went up to 4.2. lAfter that the number increased rapidly. In February of last year the number was 0.4 per cent., and by the end of October it had risen to 9.5 per cent. With the aid of these figures and the results of German forestry we cau make an interesting calculation of the effect upon theunemployed in England if State forests were cultivated there. If we take the average number of unemployed for the ten years ending 1906 as representing the normal industrial condition of the British Isles, we find that there is an average of some 400,000 workers idle,

year in and year out. Sometimes the number is reduced to 200,000, but, also, occasionally it -very nearly reaches 1,000,000. H, then, Britain had State forests on the German scale, over twofifths of the unemployed would be permanently absorbed, and the Treasury would ultimately receive an immense

yearly revenue of five millions and ahalf sterling with which to finance equally useful undertakings' to absorb the remaining three-fifths. A report on Irish forestry shows that the area under timber in 1907 was in England equal to only 5.3 per cent, of the surface, in Scotland 4.0 per cent., in Wah's i 3.9 per cent., and in Ireland 1.5 per cent. When we compare these proportions with other European countries wo see at once how the art of forestry has been neglected in Britain. In France the ar a is 17 per cent of the whole surface, in thickly-populated Belgium it is the same, in Germany it is 20 per cent., in Hungary 27 per cent., and in Austria 32 per cent. The amount of forest land in Austria is remarkable, but that in Belgium, when the great density of population of the latter country is considered, is more remarkable still, iin the Britisli Isles there are some 15,000,000 acres ot undeveloped land let at from Is to 2s fld per acre, all of which are considered to be admirably adapted for timber-grow-ing. In addition to tins, in Ireland alone there are over 2,000,000 acres of waste land, consisting of bog, marsh,

and hilly country, at present not put to any use, and there are further large quantities of similar land iu England, Wales, and Scotland, making in all a total of probably from 20 to 22 millions of acres now available for forest. It in the British Isles there are 20,000,000 •awres of land that could he put to this use, there are in New Zealand 100,000,01)0 acres. But we don't need them. If we have 5000 unemployed in the Dominion, then a modest 300,000 acres, or five farms of 00,000 acres, each in different parts of the country, would absorb them to the last man, and begin a work that has been crying for attention ever since a steel axe first touched the noble kauri. In this work, again, the number of men engaged could be increased or decreased as the outside market rejected or required them, and it has, further, the very considerable advantage of making its greatest demands on labor in the ■winter months, whtn the need of work is most felt. The question of afl'ovcsta-• tion S3 one of the very highest importance. In the past it has been entirely neglected, and for many years it is likely to remain neglected. Our want of foresight has already cost us tens of millions of pounds, and it is likely to cost as) many more. What else can we expect with a vanishing forest and an increasing timber consumption? It may, be that our rulers cannot bring their soaring minds to the contemplation of mere, commercial schemes, or it may be that, like so many urgent wants, propositions for the creation of national wealth are "kept steadily in vle.w," to be put in hand "when the time is lipe." ' If the work has to wait, then wait ift I must. But while it waits, and while ! the land of the future forests lies' idle, [let us not be guilty of the sham that ■ unemployment iu New Zealand arises;]' 'from la* of work, J

LAND SETTLEMENT DISABILITIES. The writer from whom we have quoted offers some practical suggestions regarding land settlement. At present the [State lets out its bush land entirely unimproved. The objection to this system is that the selector's capital, in five cases out of six, is exhausted long liefore lie has broken in an area sufficient to provide the bare necessities of life. Then follows for him a soul-deadening struggle. He lias before him the work of four men. He has to make his farm, lie has to work the part already made, ami lie lias to find employment (sometimes at a distance of 15 or 20 miles) to keep his wife and family. There are no eight-hour days in his calendar. He begins at daylight and works tilldark, and after does odd jobs by candle-light till bedtime. A far better plan j Mr. Haddon points out, would be to let bush sec- . tiona with sufficient land cleared and ' grassed to enable tin: selector to make [ a small living from the beginning. The

area required would vary with the nature of the land and with the purposo for which it was suited. Instead pi I paving rent on the unimproved value of! their selections tile tenants won': pay I interest on that value, plus interest on ■' the actual cost of the improvements made. Thus the viholc of the work . would be remunerative. It could he j carried out by the unemployed in the winter months, and by judicious selection it could be made to absorb many hundreds of them, if necessary. There' are very few industrious men who could not do the work of scrubbing after the experience of a week or twb. The chopping of heavy bush, on the other hand, would require experience, ami contracts For that class of work would have to be jivon only to men who knew something if it Uvea where the bush was of the lieavy kind, the scrubbing and the fcllng could be let separately, as it often s, and so as much work as possible lould be provided for the inexperienced, vim are always in the majority. The lifficultics in this echeme and all other iractical schemes would doubtless prove nsnperable in the hands of mere office nen, who have no knowledge of tlije vork and little interest in its success. :f, however, it were entrusted to men vho understood it, who wished it to. ucceed, and who had decided that it honld succeed, it would provide work or the unemployed as they required it, t would facilitate settlement, it would dd to the wealth of the Dominion, and t would lighten the untold labors of the inker of the country the pioneer .ettler.