LAND SETTLEMENT AND PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1919, Page 5

LAND SETTLEMENT AND PRICES.

i■ • i A VIGOROUS POLICY OF LAND SETTLEMENT. DAIRY PRICES MAY COME DOWN. NEED FOR FARMERS' ACCOUNTANCY Said Mr Harold Beauchamp to the annual meeting of the Bank of New Zealand yesterday:—lt is, I consider, imperative that a vigorous policy of land settlement should be pjreued in this Dominion. The State is doing excellent work in settling soldiers on the land, and some very satiuiactory results have ulready been obtained. Some 1,209 soldi' -s have at 19th May (ultimo) been settled, on areas aggregating 553,523 acres, and further settlement is in progress. Extensive financial assistance has also been afforded to many soldiers who are in need of such help. Something more, however, should bo done. There is still a vast area of native land that is lying more or less idle and unproductive. The State should deal with this land on the principle embodied in the West Coast Settlement Reserves Act, 1892. Under that Act, Native lands in Taranaki are leased in suitable areas to fanners, on terms equitable to both parties. The rentals are collected by the Publie Trustee and distributed to the Natives. The Act has operated satisfactorily in Taranaki, and could easily be made to apply to Native lands in other districts to the advantage of the Native owners and the benefit of the people of New Zealand. The heavy load of taxation that the country has 1 to bear as the result of the war makes it necessary that no means of increasing the earning-power of the country should be neglected. The settlement of the vacant lands of the Dominion is one of the principal means Dy which that earning-power can be most readily and expeditiously increased. The country must produce more, so that its surplus for export will expand, if we are to met our war burdens satisfactorily and maintain the country's progress and prosperity. But this land settlement and increased production will be impossible unless further facilities for transport and communication are provided. Therefore roads, bridges and railways become essential, and the country should endorse a comprehensive policy that will speedily secure to the pioneers in settlement theße necessary conveniences.

Owing to the present remunerative prices o,f produce, due mainly to the war and the Imperial Commander, fanners are buying and selling improved lands at very , high prices. With our main markets 12,000 miles away, with new an I formidable competitors in tho field, with Europe impoverished through the war, and people educated to tho use of substitutes; such as margarine, it is ! hftrdly possible that our dairy products can maintain their present values when tho Imperial Commandeer ends. What then will be the position of those who have paid high prices for land and burdened themselves with heavy mortgage charges? The value of any farm land must be determined by what can be got out of it by a competent farmer. At present this is largely a matter of guess-work, and a farmer, with a biassed mind, may easily persuade himself that he enn obtain better results than the farmer who is selling. What is primarily required as a guide to tho real value of land is a more exact system of farm book-keeping. No business can be successfully carried on without a proper book-keeping system, and farming, being a business, is nj exception to the rule; but it i 3 to bj feared that at present farmers' books, where kept at all, are by no means accurate and are of little use as an inde-v to the value of the land the farmer is working, and therefore not entirely reliable as a guide to his true financial position. The question of proper methods of farming accountancy is engaging attention in other parts of the and it is to be hoped that the outcome of the consideration that it is receiving will be he evolution of a satisfactory svstem by which the farmer will be able to ascerta!.; the true results of his operations arJ to determine the true value of the land he is working, or may be proposing to purchase. j