DISUNION RISKS DEFEAT

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 20, 23 July 1927, Page 8

DISUNION RISKS DEFEAT

In opposing tlio Hutt basin water supply and development scheme, Mr. D. Hoggard is reported as saying at yesterday's meeting of the Hutt County Council that "Mr. .Troup now admits that the Akatarawa Eiver is not a factor in any water supply scheme." Mr. Troup's statement In last ThiiTS-

day's "Evening Post 7" contains no such admission. In answer to a question by a "Post" reporter—:

Tho. Mayor stated that the question of water supply could not be determined without expert investigation, but that on present evidence it was to tho Whakatiki and Ihe Little Akatarawa, rather than to tho Akatarawa, that one would be inclined to look for the first step in water supply. That, however, was a matter for -the board.

x. will be seen at a glance that this very guarded statement is far from being an admission that the Akatarawa Eiver ig not a fantor in any water supply scheme. The chief importance of Mr. Troup's statement, as "The Post" sees it, is his recognition that land should not be purchased, on privatelysecured option, without independent and competent valuation. If recognition of that principle ia general, the cry that public money may be used "to buy a pig in a poke" is' disposed of. The main principle of the proposed scheme is that the publicly-owned lands of the Hutt basin shall be placed under one administration representative of local bodies concerned, which administration shall be empowered to buy other lands. Criticism of the constitutional

and representative clauses goes to the heart of the BUI, but criticism based on a mere assumption that the proposed now body will take certain arbitrary courses falls in a different and much less useful category. The new body is not bound to buy a single acre; it is not bound to accept or reject any stream for water supply; and it is free to fix the order in which the streams shall be used and the character of the

Arguing from a supposed admission which is certainly absent from Mr. Troup's statement in "The Post," Mr. Hpggard is reported to have advocated a division of the Hutt basin scheme, placing the Whakatiki and the Little Akatarawa under the City Council, and tho higher Hutt -under a board representing the Hutt Valley local authorities. Considering the responsibilities involved, and the commitments and character of local bodies in general, it is very unlikely that the scheme would be strengthened by dividing it. The principle of united action, in the way of buying Hutt basin lands, for conservation and development, has been recognised in the joint purchase of what is called tho Mills Block, in the Little Akatarawa and Akatarawa area. Abandonment of this collective policy to make way for such a division as Mr. Hoggard suggests should not be resorted to save in extreme necessity. A division of effort might be dictated by a final failure to agree as. to representation in the control, but would not be warranted on any such inadequate ground as an assumption that tho now body will choose tho wrong stream or buy land that ought not to be bought. The caso for better representation, if sound, needs no such extraneous aids. Provided that power in the collective body is fairly allocated, all the local bodies should be prepared to trust it, with the usual safeguards of local body procedure. Mr. Hoggard's alternative is, by splitting slondor resources, to make them still more slender. And the Government, which seems to be generously prepared to give for nothing, to a collective control, lands of great potential valuo acquired at some cost, might well recoil from a piecemeal proposal that invites its owu defeat.