CITY AND SUBURBAN WATER BOARD

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 83, 9 April 1928, Page 8

CITY AND SUBURBAN WATER BOARD

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Your article in. "The Post" throws some light on the present position in the city and suburban water catchment area, but to the ordinary layman it is still very obscure. Public interest in the controversy to laill or not to mill haß been shown by the correspondence in the daily papers. I cannot recollect seeing one out of the many who have written on the subject who has been in favour of the proposed milling of the bush. As far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no obligation whatever to mill even the 150 acres adjacent to the sawmill, the proprietors of which refused to tender when the land was put up for tender by the Forestry Department in 1926. Their argu^ nient that it would not pay to offer the 2s 9d per 100 ft royalty then must still hold good, only 100 per cent, more bo, now the land is required for a water catchment area. As to the statement of the late Director of Forestry that the bush would be improved by milling, he had never seen New Zealand rain forest until he came here less than eight years ago, Last year's annual balance-sheet of the State Forest Service shows £86,000 received from the sale of timber from the indigenous forest —nothing whatever from the man-made plantations. Mr. Seed, on the other hand, says to mill would be to destroy. A fact that has influenced the hoard is the statement by Mr. Strand. He is a landowner in the district, and as a board member he is a very strong advocate for milling. He states that the Government made it a condition of the endowment that the bush must be milled. Not to do so would be a distinct breach of trust, and the land should be handed back to the Government, otherwise it would be taken back by Act of Parliament. This is a very strong argument, and very convincing, but what is it worth after a few inquiries have been made into the preliminaries connected with the formation of the board and trust? Mr. Peter Fraser, M.P., who took charge of the Bill on behalf of the City Council, who was present at all committees, and who received a special vote of thanks on behalf of the city for his good work, states: —"There was no such condition attached to the endowment." Ho l?oes further, and says there was never even the suggestion of such a thing during his connection with the long-drawn-out negotiations before the Bill was passed. It is to be hoped that authority to mill ■will be withheld until more mature consideration is given to it. If this is done, I nm convinced that there will be no milling for some years to come, and not until the proposed, plantations are well on the way to maturity.—l am, etc., HYGIENE.