THE NASSELLA TUSSOCK

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23716, 14 August 1942, Page 4

THE NASSELLA TUSSOCK

FUNCTIONS OF CONTROL BOARDS COMMITTEE SECRETARY’S REPLY TO “THE PRESS” A letter in which he charges “The Press” with rushing in “where angels fear to tread” and with publishing an “ill-timed, ill-considered, and inaccurate leading article on nassella tussock control.” has been written to the editor of “The Press” by the honorary secretary of the Nassella Tussock Committee tMr Cyril McCaskey). “The first inaccuracy, and one on which the rest of the article is based, is that the core of the draft bill is based on lines of existing rabbit boards, which your leader writer then proceeds to dump as failures,” writes Mr McCsskcyi “In the first place, the proposed legislation is based on a killer rabbit board as distinct from ordinary rabbit boards. A killer board does its own work and has wider powers. Blandly to state that these boards are a failure is not the truth. In Marlborough, for example, a few years ago, in spite of ordinary rabbit-board control, many areas were literally seething with rabbits. They were there in thousands, hillsides literally moved with them, and yet by the enterprise and foresightedness of farmers who formed a killer rabbit board to-day scarcely a rabbit remains. They are not controlled —they are exterminated. Is this what your leading article casually dumps as a ‘failure’? Any Marlborough farmer would give you the answer. . “The next criticism regarding nassella control, where your article states as a first essential that it should apply to all the areas affected, shows that he is ill-informed and premature with his destructive article. Had he obtained fuller information he would know the committee envisages a board including all class 111 and class- IV areas in North Canterbury, some 325,000 acres, which would embrace all affected areas except the more heavily infested, which the Government will handle. . , , . , “Finally, to show how painstakingly he has studied his subject, he suggests that there is no necessity for any special form of control, and that the committee and others have but wasted their time the last two years when they could so easily have had nassella added to the second schedule of the Noxious Weeds Act and controlled by various county councils. , “Does ‘The Press’ not keep a consistent policy? In April. 1941, after pulling the Noxious Weeds Act and its administration to pieces, and rightly so, ‘The Press' says: ‘The arrival of nassella tussock, which would become a Do-minion-wide menace if neglected, provides an opportunity for placing the whole problem of weed 'control on a prooer footing.’ . „ “The question of having nassella made a noxious weed was threshed out nearly two years ago (when your opinion would have been relevant) but it was discarded in favour of the principle of ‘a board with Government assistance.* This has been endorsed and supported by widely representative meetings since. It is interesting also to note that two such eminent men as Dr. H. H. Allen and Mr Cockayne are both agreed that the Noxious Weeds Act as administered would not deal effectively with nassella. “Now, after nearly two years of patient work, before you are provided even with the full facts, you bring out a leading article full of destructive criticism and nothing but an out-of-date. discarded idea to put in its place, “This proposed legislation has been given its great chance of success by the Government undertaking to deal with the heavily-infested areas, thus giving the whole problem a national aspect and relieving the local board of an almost insuperable job with its limited finance.

“In publishing ine leading article you do. in essence, deride the present committee and all those who in the last two years have patiently, untiringly, and with no self-gain in view (only considerable sacrifice in most eases'* have carried on the job of trying to evolve some practical scheme to control a menace, of which few to-day can envisage the harm it will do to the whole nation.” [A leading article on this subject appears in to-day’s issue.]