1921.] 



BriLPiNc for Land Settlement. 



101 



relationship with County Councils, and the Ministry's District 

 Commissioners act with the superintending architects " as 

 ambassadors to the County Councils." Experience has shown 

 that cheap architects make poor buildings, and the Ministry 

 urges upon County Councils the engagement of men with 

 proper qualifications. In view of the bitter need for reduction 

 in cost, it has been found that the architect in charge of cottage 

 and farm building schemes must needs be more of an organiser 

 and economist than an artist. The complete task of the 

 Ministry which is, working through the County Councils, to 

 provide three thousand new cottages and nearly two thousand 

 .sets of new farm buildings, in addition to hundreds of adapta- 

 tions of existing premises, is complicated by the fact that the 

 work is spread over sixty-two administrative counties " in 

 remote Yorkshire vales, on the slopes of Welsh mountains, 

 in the folds of inaccessible downs." The whole of the 

 architectural work has been carried on as far as the Depart- 

 ment is concerned by less than fifty people and the best 

 possible use has been made of the very limited range of avail- 

 able material. In building operations it has been found that 

 brick has held its own, though most exhaustive experiments 

 have been made with cob, pise and concrete. 



The Ministry looks forward to the time when it will no 

 longer need to control directly the building operations on its 

 own Farm Settlements, which amount to 25.000 acres. It takes 

 ihe view that building is a commercial business associated 

 with a speculative side and carrying with it risks that a 

 Ministry ought not to undertake. A Government Department 

 is concerned with administration and not with trade, nor can 

 it hope to carry on business successfully because the Treasury 

 supervision, which is absolutely essential in the best interests 

 of the State, enforces delays and difficulties which the ordinary 

 building contractor does not encounter. This view is explained 

 in greater detail in the Report of Proceedings under the Small 

 Holdings Colonies Act for the period ended 31^t March, 1020, 

 in which it is explained that a decision has been arrived at: — 



(a) To divide into small holdings the area now devoted 

 to central farms on small holdings settlements, and to 

 dispense with the services of the Director so soon as the 

 equipment of the whole estate for small holdings purposes 

 has been completed and the settlers are fairly established. 



(b) To transfer the management of such estates to the 

 Councils of the counties in which they are situate. 



