WEST COAST NEGLECTED?

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1946, Page 3

WEST COAST NEGLECTED?

PENALTY ON THE POLITICALLY "SAFE” WESTPORT PRESS COMMENT Attention was drawn in the editorial column of the Evening Star yesterday to the fact that a 10-year plan for the West Coast has not yet been announced. Commenting on the same lack the Westport News has the following to say: “The Minister of Works is having a very busy time presenting and explaining to local authorities 10-year development plans for the various provincial districts of New Zealand. He seems, at the moment, to be concentrating on the already welldeveloped provinces of the east coast. In quick succession we have heard of Mr. Semple discussing his department’s proposals with local bodies in Canterbury, in Otago, in Southland. Perhaps, as a general election looms, it is considered sound policy to impress on the many thousands of voters in those areas of close settlement and industrial concentration the advantages that might be expected to accrue to them if the Government were accorded time, in a fourth term of office, to bring its plans to fruition.” “Bringing Gifts” The western side of the South Island is not one that attracts a great deal of Ministerial attention. It may be that there is a cynical inclination to regard the territory, in the political sense, as being “safe”; as one into which Labour Ministers do not need to come frequently, bringing gifts, in order that a stable political opinion of the right order may be maintained. Districts which should be the first to hear from the Government on the subject of planned development are thus left to the last. “This fact may possibly excite little attention, here or in Wellington. Indeed, it is questionable whether passive submission locally to a policy of official indifference is not to be regarded as a major cause of the backward condition of this coastal region, relative to the development that has been achieved on the other side of the island. .....

We do not hesitate to submit, nevertheless, that a just and realistic appraisal of needs on the part of the Minister and his principal officers — an appraisal, that is to say, based on grounds of equity as well as need and opportunity—would have led Mr. Semple to the conclusion that a beginning in the work of regional development might more properly be made here than anywhere else. Progress towards improvement in the Buller-Inangahua area, if could very easily be shown, has been incredibly slow and laborious. There is so much that needs doing, upon which the future depends—and so little that gets done. It has been a work of years to get even the promise of State-reticu-lated electric power for the Buller, for instance. “Crying Aloud for Attention. Local bodies in the Buller need not lack material on which to work in the immediate future. The district cries - aloud for attention—for the opening up of new areas of timbei and farm lands, such as would result for example, from construction of the proposed road from Cape Foulwind to Charleston; for -the regeneration of the native forests on the terraces that are a natural feature of this tenain, for the widening 'and improvement of the road to Karamea; for the discovery and development of new coal measures; for the utilisation of the rich lime and clay deposits at Cape Foulwind; for the processing of coal and the recovery of an amazing range of valuable by-products; for the provision of a new traffic bridge over the Buller. , , “The list could be enlarged. Yet, regardless of the wealth that has gone out of this county for half a century and more to enrich other parts of the Dominion theie is, in 1946, not even the inducement ot electric power, readily available, for those who would seek industrial opportunity. If development programmes were to be separated liom political opportunism the claims ol the Buller to official attention could not be denied. If there were, even now, an honest assessment ot needs in Wellington they would not be ignored any longer.” __