LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1919, Page 5

LAND FOR SOLDIERS.

EXTENSION OF LIMIT FOR ADVANCES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, April 25. The Minister for Lands (Hon. D. H. Guthrie) stated to-day that, up to the present time, £2,500,000 had been expended in placing 1133 returned soldiers on 073,000 acres. The total included payments for the purchase of private anil Native lands and advances for the purchase of stock, erection of buildings, and other improvements. The cost per soldier settler is about £2500. This amount is not considered excessive in view of the high prices of land and stock in New Zealand. It has been found necessary to secure improved land for the soldiers in many cases, since the men are not always able to undertake the breaking in of blackblock country. The Minister added that Cabinet had agreed to extend the limit of advances to soldiers for the purchase of stock and general improvements form £750 to £iooo in ordinary cases and to ,£1250 in special cases. This concession is intended to apply to bush lands, where experience has shown that the old advance was not, sufficient to establish a soldier settler on a firm basis. The conditions of the Government loans make it almost impossible for the soldier to secure assistance from any other source, since, the available security, in land and stock, is completely mortgaged to the State. The old maximum advance admittedly was too low in many cases.