LANDS IMPROVEMENT

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 8

LANDS IMPROVEMENT

Reclamation, Irrigation, Drainage MISCELLANEOUS VOTES Many miscellaneous -items of interest are contained in the Public Works Estimates. The vote for lauds improvement totals £170,000, compared with £37,909 expended last year. In the Wellington district £50,000 is provided for the Hutt River reclamation, and £5500 for sand-dune reclamation (Hokio to Manawatu River). Flood control in the Napier district (Ngaruroro River) will have £20,000 this year, and for the diversion of the Tutaekuri River a further £11,400 is voted. The aggregate vote for irrigation, water supply and drainage will be £120,000, as against £85,414 expended last year. Swamp land drainage is to receive a vote of £30,000, compared with £12,922 spent last year. For the settlement of unemployed workers on the land’(small farm schemes, advances to men settling on farms, and associated expenses) the vote this year amounts to £425,000. Last year £146,480 was spent. The vote for Native land settlement has also been increased, the total this year being £124,000, compared with £71,888 spent last year. Dairy industry loans are estimated to require £90,000 this year. Last year the expenditure amounted to £10,750. Whereas £195,380 was spent last financial year on telegraph extension, the vote for the current year lias been increased to £360,000. Of this pum £145,000 is required for the construction of telegraph and toll systems, and £315,000 for building telephone exchanges. Another phase of Public Works activity that has called for an increased vote is the development of tourist resorts, for which £30,000 is provided' in the Estimates. The vote last year was £29,000, but only £13,683 was spent. An amount of £11,855 is allotted to improve the facilities at Chateau Tongariro, including* £6375 on staff quarters and £3500 for improving Scoria Flat Road. Huts and buildings in the Eglinton Valley are provided for by a vote of £7500, and additions to the Milford Hostel are to cost £2OOO. The sum of £l5OO is appropriated for floodlighting the Rotorua gardens. Lighthouses and harbour works are allotted £12,000 this,year, as against £20,835 spent last financial year. The radio beacon at Baring Head, for which £2OOO was voted last year but not spent, again appears in the Estimates, the same sum being put down for expenditure this year.