uld be a step forward in the sense that it would
increase opportunities for investment of capital and employment of labor,
which would result in the increase of the coal output so much needed.

The only step so far undertaken by Congress in the direction of land
colonization is the appropriation of $200,000 for an investigation by the
Reclamation Service, Department of the Interior, of lands outside of the
existing reclamation projects. The measures needed are waiting for action.

In regard to the available land for acquisition, reclamation, and
colonization, several projects are proposed by the above-quoted bills
and by various Federal departments. The principal projects are as follows:

1. Agricultural:

a. Logged-off lands in the North Middle Western
and Northwestern states.

b. Irrigation of desert lands in the Southwestern
states.

c. Drainage of swamp lands in the Southern states.

2. Forestry projects; permanent colonies for logging,
milling, and reforestation of logged-off lands in the
Northwestern states.

3. Colonization projects for an intensive cultivation of
lands around smaller growing towns.

4. Colonization projects in Alaska for developing various
extractive industries.

Action of some sort is eminently desirable in this country, especially
in view of the fact that other countries have already taken steps to
these ends.

PROVISION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

The settlement of soldiers on land has been a problem much considered in
all of the warring nations. Although the plans are just only being tried
out for the first time in many cases, they are suggestive of the trend
that land-settlement laws are taking.

In 1918 a law was enacted in France "providing for the acquisition of
small rural properties by soldier and civilian victims of the war. It
provides in part for 'individual mortgage loans to facilitate
acquisition, parceling out, transformation, and reconstitution of small
rural properties of which the value does not exceed 10,000 francs.' The
loans are to be made from the agricultural lending societies at a rate
of 1 per cent, with a term of twenty-five years. Advances for
improvements are provided for and a special commission is appointed to
administer the law."[14]

In the United Kingdom, as well as in the majority of its dominions and
states, acts providing for land settlement for ex-soldiers have been passed
or f