Progress League Discusses Aims

Press, Issue 32333, 26 June 1970, Page 14

Progress League Discusses Aims

The Canterbury Progress League should be a pressure group to help local bodies with ideas for the advancement of the province, members of the league and representatives of local bodies agreed at a meeting last evening.

The chairman of the league, (Mr P. F. Maples), said that, the league had an important! part to play in initiating new; ideas and in co-ordinating! matters of concern to the whole of Canterbury. “There seems to be a growing disenchantment among the people of Canterbury that the South Island in general,: and Canterbury in particular, is not receiving sufficient attention from central government It is in this situation that the league should strengthen its resources and increase its sphere of operations,” he said. Some criticism of the league came from Mr D. H. Warren, chairman of the Panarua County Council, and Mr A. Y. Shuker, a Paparua County councillor, who questioned what the league was doing with its cash assets of nearly $lB,OOO. The league did not seem to: be doing much with the money and was still asking for what could be crudely described as hand-outs, said Mr Shuker. He asked if it had any intention of reviewing the

amounts it asked from each local body in the province annually. Mr Maples said that, on the contrary, the league intended to ask local bodies for more money. The amount of $9741 given by local bodies, including $5OO from the Paparua County Council, barely cov:ered wages and salaries of staff in the Public Relations Office and did not allow for rent and printing costs. The other $BOOO held had been raised during the last three or four years through profitable publications and. projects, and was held as a reserve.

Mr K. M. Baxter, chairman of the Ashburton County Council, said that one criticism of the league was that it was inclined to be a Christchurch progress league rather than a Canterbury one. Mr Maples said the league : was trying to serve the needs lof all Canterbury local bodies : through utilisation of land resources, establishment of new ! industry in Canterbury and servicing of the province by central government.