North Canterbury Land Drainage

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22678, 5 April 1939, Page 10

North Canterbury Land Drainage

At a conference of local authorities in Rangiora early last month a motion was passed approving the principle that one authority (the Waimakariri River Trust was suggested) should control rivers and main drains in the area included in the Rangiora, Eyre, and Oxford Counties. The scheme was also supported by the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, M.P., and by Mr C. Morgan Williams, M.P. Mr Morgan Williams summarised the case against the present system, or lack of system, when he said there were instances of one authority controlling a

river and another authority the drains running into that river, with the result that one authority frequently acted in a manner detrimental to the interests of other authorities. At its meeting on Monday the Eyre County Council discussed the proposals and decided, after no fewer than 10 motions had been brought forward, that it did not approve them. It is fair to say that the council’s general attitude in this matter is an example of the sort of attitude which must eventually wreck county government. That drainage in the Eyre county is unsatisfactory was not denied; one member went as far as to say that the council “ had never “taken steps to get efficient drainage in the “district.” Nor was there much opposition to the view that drainage work in the area could most efficiently be carried out by one authority. The negative decision was due, it may be suspected, partly to unwillingness to surrender authority and partly to a vague fear that the scheme might not be financially equitable. If the Eyre County Council persists in its attitude, the scheme will have to be abandoned. But it is to be hoped that members of the council will be under no illusions as to the ultimate results of their refusal to co-oper-ate. They cannot obstruct progress indefinitely. If local authorities will not combine to put an end to the costly muddle of river control and land drainage, they will eventually be overridden.