SELWYN RIVER DRAINAGE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25306, 4 October 1947, Page 10

SELWYN RIVER DRAINAGE

DELAY IN OBTAINING SUBSIDY

GOVERNMENT’S UNUSUAL ACTION

Two officers in charge of Government departments at Christchurch, who were at the same time members of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, had been asked by the Government to make a special report on the benefit that might accrue to landj affected by the Selwyn river flood control scheme, in spite of the fact that it had been approved by the Minister of Works (Mr R. Semple), the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council and the Minister of Finance (Mr W. Nash), reported the chairman of the Catchment Board (Mr W. Machin) at a meeting yesterday. He was explaining the delay that had occurred in securing approval for the board’s application for a subsidy to carry out the scheme.

Mr Machin described interviews he had had with both Mr Semple and Mr N&sh, and read a letter he had written to the two Government officers on learning of their task.

In the letter, Mr Machin referred to the unusual course that had been taken in getting board members to make the report. He asked them whether, if the board was candid with them and gave them the information, they in turn would be candid with the board, and whether they would supply a copy of their report. The Soil Conservation Council, he pointed out, had made no request for a betterment report. or indicated that one was being made.

“Not Just Question of Betterment” “It is not just a question of the betterment of farms to be taken into account,” said Mr Machin. “A recession of prices in about eight years’ time might alter any calculations that can be made about economic advantage and the value of land. It cannot take into account the benefit by flood protection works to the surrounding country or the effects of a disastrous flood. Something has gone wrong. It would have been more correct if the Treasury or our superior body had written to us for information on the relation between the subsidy and what the settlers must find.

“First of all the settlers will have to find £BOOO or £9OOO on canital costs. They will have to find £BOO a year for maintenance —if capitalised, more than the amount of the subsidy—and nayable in perpetuity They must be rated for work on subsidiary drains, and must bear the whol® of the cost of mole or tile draining on their own *arms.”

Mr Machin added that the**® had been 14 maior fl nods in t’' , e Selwvn river in the last 20 They could not reckoned aga ; nst subsidies. Next Febrna”v th°re misht b*» another maior a«d in the meantime the work was held un.

Moving that the chairman’s action in writing to the Government officers who had b DA n asked to hr in" down a rpmi-f shnulrt h° nonfirmed. Mr L. W Hia* th« conn'’’! badl-v The should clea” its relations with th® council for the sake of its future work.