The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1945. Harbour Board Vacancy

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24547, 21 April 1945, Page 6

The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1945. Harbour Board Vacancy

When the Minister of Marine nominated Mr W, B. Laing to fill Mr Langdale Hunt’s vacant seat on the Lyttelton Harbour Board, he ignored the right—established by custom, not by statute—of the eight Canterbury county councils whom Mr Hunt had represented to recommend his successor. The protest of the eight counties, reported a day or two ago, gives the Minister an occasion to explain himself more rationally, if he can, than in his statement last week; and it is to bs hoped that he- will set himself to use it. All the Minister has said, sp far, is that such an appointment is generally made after “ certain “ recommendations ” have been received; that after “sufficient time “ had elapsed . . . the only one “ received ” was in favour of Mr Laing; that it had come from “ cer- “ tain people down there ”, the < appointment looked “ pretty good ”, and he had “ just put it through and that the councils, which ought to “ get busy ” when such a vacancy occur?, had been “a bit “ slow ”, It is not easy to credit Mr O'Brien with political cynicism, which implies—to borrow his pet word—a certain elasticity of mind; but if he has not been cynical in this matter, it is he who has been “ a bit slow ”, for the only alternative is that he was told what to do, told it would be “ pretty good ”, and did it without looking further than the dotted line. A short review of his statement shows that. It overlooks the fact that, among the “certain recommendations” generally received (and awaited), that of the councils is the essential one. The “sufficient time” which Mr O’Brien says bad elapsed was not, in fact, sufficient tq include a regular meeting of all the councils, or to enable them to hold the joint meeting, punctually called. The •councils have indeed been so careless and so sluggish that, if the Minister bad waited to appoint on their recommendation, the new member could have taken his seat at the board table as soon as Mr Laing will. What the Minister’s explanation so weakly cqvers is an undemocratic act, not a legally indefensible one. Mr Laing is technically qualified, but not qualified at ail in the only respect that sigr pifies; that is, in being approved by the bodies be is, technically, to represent. The Minister is technic cally justified; he is within his legal rights. But he has used them to set aside the value of loqaj consent in local representation and to accept the recommendation of “ certain "people” unnamed instead of the counties concerned. And the excuse for this js framed as though calem dars, telegrams,’ and telephones did not exist. Mr O’Brien needs a better one, when he has to explain either why he did not want to jet democracy work or hew he came to forget ft. Productivity It was suggested in this column on Wednesday that New Zealand’s production -can be far more rapidly and economically raised by new measures of land care than by measures to bring in new areas, the inference being that alj schemes of capital expenditure to increase the area under production should be tested accordingly, Neither kind pf measure excludes the other; but )f it is necessary at present and in the near future to choose whether capital shall be applied to progress in one way or in the other, there can be llttje doubt that higher productivity should be pursued, and not a larger production area. Jn essentials this belief is sustained by Dr, W, M, Hamilton’s purvey, “The Dairy In“duatry in New Zealand", issued as Bulletin 89 of the Council of Scientific and industrial Research, He sees, for example, “no reason “why an increase of 50 pet 1 cent, in “production from the area at pres-- “ ent devoted to dairying should not “ be achieved in a comparatively “short period, say, 10 years, after “the war”; and this estimate has the greater importance because of his parallel estimate that the longterm (export) prospects for butter are promising. On the other hand, though he has found “considerable “areas of undeveloped land” suitable in lie, soil, and climate for dairying, he hap found also that high costs of development are against bringing them in. Policies of higher productivity are not for the farmer qlone to follow;-he can go so far but no further, unless a State policy encourages and assists him to go as far as there is real advantage to be won, For this reason Dr. Hamilton’s report is a document of first-class political importance, as well as agricultural. Among the factors involved he deals with “out-moded methods “ of breeding and selection "—a heavy but well sustained charge—which have enabled Denmark to maintain a 50-60 Ib average superiority in production, (The value of systematic herd statistics is illustrated in the fact that only 30 per cent, of sires are leaving daughters more productive than their dams—a fact which points straight to the need (a) to identify these sires early, and (b) to extend their use.) Another factor is that of wastage due to animal disease, control of which, Dr. Hamilton argues, will not be more rapidly established without a more adequate veterinary service; and he appears to lean towards the solution of a national service under the Dairy Board. Again, though Nev' Zealand dairy farmers have learned how to improve their pasture faster than they have learned to improve their herds, he notes that there is much still to be done in pasture improvement—only 36 per cent, of the North Island’s 5,655,000 acres rate as good sward, in Madden’s typeclassification —and much still to be learned or to be intelligently applied. The result of deficiencies as

a whole |s that many herds «e still underfed when pasture is low; end Dr. Hamilton suspects that the under-average half of the New Zealand herds could “most easily” be made more probative by better feeding,