City and Suburban Water Board

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 150, 21 March 1931, Page 9

City and Suburban Water Board

rSlr, —At Wednesday's meeting of the City and Suburban Water Board, Mr. I’. Robertson is reported as follows: “The position reflected great credit in the management of the milling, to which the board owed its favourable position.” In the same report we read: “Royalties on timber. £lloo.'’ The position is that the board has let the miller loose in the only forest near the city. He is paying something in the vicinity if 1/6 per 100 royalty. and picking all the big trees out of the forest. Eor one tree he cuts up dozens are destroyed. With the money received salaries are paid and a small amount of planting done with foreign trees of a very inferior type. These are in most cases doing very poorly. They not only alter the character of the bush, but increase the fire danger, which is ever present, once the large trees are removed. Talk about destroying goats and controlling wild life. Once the forest is gone there will be nothing left to destroy or control. Now that the Lower Hutt and Petone boroughs, for whose beneefit the board was formed, are definitely out of the scheme, for all time, the whole position should be reviewed. Public opinion should demand a stop to all milling. A water board whose policy should be to conserve the forest to depend for its temporary prosperity by selling its big trees, on whose presence depends its value water conservation, is a tragedy.. The people of this city and district are vitally Interested in this forest, which is witlun one hour’s run from the G.P.O. The whole position calls for immediate action. —I am, etc., WIfILbINtrr oNIAN. March 12.