N.Z. VETERINARY SCHOOL

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27631, 12 April 1955, Page 12

N.Z. VETERINARY SCHOOL

Government Studies Report LINCOLN LIKELY TO ' BE SITE (From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, April 11. • If a veterinary school is established in New Zealand, it will probably be at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr K. J. Holyoake) has received a report from a committee of the New Zealand University Senate on the establishment of a school, and it has now been passed on for consideration by a caucus committee, after being discussed by the Cabinet. The Government has already advised the Canterbury Agricultural College Board of Governors that its Haims to have a school established at Lincoln will not be overlooked. The estimated capital cost of such a project is £250,000, with an estimated annual expenditure of £50,000. The University Senate committee’s decision was not unanimous. Mr A. P. O’Shea, who is general secretary of Federated Farmers, dissented from the opinion that there should be a New Zealand veterinary school. He said he believed that there would be grave risks in trying to train all or most of the Dominion’s veterinarians in New Zealand.

One of the chief reasons for selecting Lincoln as the site for a school would be because it would be close to a university college with a full-time professorial staff, and to an agricultural college. Other reasons would be as follows:

(1) Canterbury has a complete range of all the Dominion’s breeds of sheep. (2) Irrigation is carried on in the area.

(3) Christchurch is both a trotting and racing centre, and draught horses are still available in the province.

(4) Winter conditions for stock have small resemblances to thqse of the North Island, with occasional glimpses of those found in the extreme south.

(5) Grain feeding of stock, including pigs, can be studied. (6) Canterbury is the centre of the poultry industry in New Zealand. Dr. J. G. Van Der Wath, a member of the South African Wool Board, who recently visited New Zealand, commented that it would pay New . Zealand handsomely to have its own veterinary college. He suggested it would be better to have it associated with the Otago Medical School, rather than with one of the agricultural colleges. Dunedin’s claims to the veterinary school, it is understood, have not yet been officially advanced. The New Zealand Veterinary Association favours Palmerston North as the site for a school.