The Hawera Star WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1926. A DAIRY SCHOOL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 April 1926, Page 6

The Hawera Star

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 1926. A DAIRY SCHOOL.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Man gatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea ' Waverley, ilokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Merewere. Fraser Road and Ararata.

Sound commonsense, and a generous appreciation of the national need, marked the decision of the public meeting held in Hawera yesterday to consider the claims of South Taranaki as a site for the' agricultural college shortly to be established in the North Island. Experts having decided already that the location of the college shall be somewhere in “the Palmerston North-Marton area,,” it was too much to hope that South Taranaki might be chosen; but, nevertheless, the meeting could have made itself a nuisance to the authorities by adopting the parochial attitude which has lately become so pronounced in Palmerston North, Feikling and Marton. That it refused to do anything so paltry is to the credit of.those public men responsible . for the resolution adopted. It is a matter for regret that the local jealousy between Auckland and Wellington, over which the decision for the Palmerston North-Marton district was an undoubted triumph, should now have been transferred to the several centres within that area; but the Government and its advisers, more particularly the two Professors of Agriculture concerned, may be trusted to over-ride all other influences in .the desire to fix upon the best possible site in the interest of the whole of the Island. The proposal to investigate the revenue available from South Taranaki endowments. for a dairy school, and the prospects of developing the present association between the Hawera Dairy Laboratory and the science department of the Hawera High School along approved practical

lines., on the other hand, is one worthy of perseverance. When it comes to the establishment of a dairy school,, no other district in the North Island, no other district in the Dominion,, is so favourably circumstanced as South Taranaki. Agriculture is not our industry, and an agricultural college would be out of place in this province; but dairying is our industry—speaking broadly, it is our all —and the benefit to that industry, not only in South Taranaki, but over the whole Island, of an up-to-date dairy school working in conjunction with New Zealand’s pioneer dairy laboratory, would be almost incalculable. We trust that Mr H. G. Dickie, M.P., will be able soon to lay his finger on the further particulars sought, and that, then, no time will be lost in calling a further meeting to consider the position.