AN EXPENSIVE SYSTEM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9670, 8 December 1909, Page 4

AN EXPENSIVE SYSTEM.

Sreaking in the House of Representatives on Monday evening last, on the Land for Settlement BiW, the Premier stated that altogether 4,725 tenants, including those at Cheviot, had been put on 1,129,224 acres of land at a cost of £5,712,478, an aver age cost of £1,209 per head for those put on the land. Some members would not'recognise that though the Government had been acquiring estates all alone and was negotiating for them still, in recent years, and during the Jast year or two particularly, land had reached such a high price that it was not one in 20, 30, or 40 estates that the Government had any chance of purchasing at anything like the price demanded. To pal IS,IOU sttthis on the lam', a

had been suggested, would cost over 20 million pounds all told. Was it supposed that the Government could goon spending money for this purpose at the rate it had been doing, or at the rate that was required to put 13,000 people on the land at a cost of 20 millions, and at the same time carry on its railway and other works? It was impossible to continue the system of expenditure that had been I'oilowed tor the acquirement of land for settlement, while making other required provision for the development of the country. The Government shaped the course for land settlement with a view to relieving so far as possible, its going on the money market. If the Government obtained one million it would not go on the London money market or anywnere else far another mill'on. The money would be invested in purchases of land. This was one of the objects of the whole of the series of proposals on the land question that had been placed before the House.