SEVERE PRUNING.
AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT.
TOTAL SAVING, £177,200.
ABOLITION OF MANY SERVICES.
A severe application of the pruning knife is advocated by the National Expenditure Commission in its report on the Agriculture Department.
The Commission points out that the personnel of the Department has increased from 404 in 1914-15 to 737 in 1031-32. The duties of the Department are largely instructional- and inspectorial, and drastic curtailment is essential. There is now a large staff at the head office, and the curtailment of staff should be possible without destroying efficiency. The head of the Department should be a non-professional and nontechnical officer.
■The Commission recommends that the Board of Agriculture be abolished, that at Ruakura the educational work should cease at the end of the present term, and the property should be subdivided and sold. The Department's laboratory at Wellington should be co-ordinated with the Dominion laboratory, and the vote for the investigation into the mineral content of pastures should bo reduced. In the live stock division there should be drastic curtailment of services. The administration of the' Noxious Weeds Act should be handed over to local authorities, and poisoning and distribution depots should be selfsupporting. In the horticultural division the staff should be reduced by onethird, and the horticultural station at Te Kauwhata should be closed. The dairy division staff should be reduced by one-tenth, and investigation work in connection with cheese should be financed by that industry. The plant research station at Marton should be closed, and the subsidy to rabbit boards be reduced by 50 per cent. The present system of fruit guarantee for export should be abolished, and the free carriage of lime and partial free carriage of fertilisers should be discontinued.
The subsidy for cow testing should be reduced next year to £5000, and reduced by £1000" a year until extinguished.
The Commission recommends a saving of £177,200. under the following headings:—Head oflice, £12,310, which includes £7500 in salaries; live stock division, £30,000 (£14,000 in salaries); horticultural division, £7735 ( £5500 in salaries); dairy division, £7435 (£4500 in salaries); fields division, £10,825 (£9OOO in salaries); miscellaneous services, £95,745 (including £6500 in salaries and £70,000 in carriage of lima for bona fide farmers, portion of freight rates on fertilisers, and subsidy to manufacturers of superphosphates); general, £0500.
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Bibliographic details
Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 11
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378SEVERE PRUNING. Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 233, 1 October 1932, Page 11
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