BALL’S CLEARING, PUKETITIRI.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XX, Issue 73, 10 March 1930, Page 8

BALL’S CLEARING, PUKETITIRI.

(To the Editor). Sir,—This week a picnic consisting of about 90 boys and 60 parents and friends of Here worth School was held at Ball’s Clearing with the object of familiarising people with this magnificent piece of bush, the fate of which is now hanging in the balance. All were so charmed by the beauties of the place that a petition was there and then signed hy the adult members of the party begging the Government (who is the owner of it) to make the place a national reserve. Every week the saw-millers, to whom the milling rights have been leased, are creeping nearer the vital spots and in a year or two this unique possession will have been irreparably ruined. It appears that tlio Forestry De partment. which has bought the bush is swayed hy the fact that its books must show a paper profit on its transactions. Are we to lie down under this purely commercial argument ? Must the interests of posterity and irreplaceable natural neauty be sacrificed in order to produce a satisfactory balance sheet? Perhaps a nation which allows its Railway Department to deface the countryside with hidious advertisements for the sale of a few thousands a year, deserve to be treated in this way by its own Government.

It is to be hoped that every school and private family that can get to Ball's Clearing in the near future will make a point of doing so, and exercise any pressure that can be brought to hear to save it from destruction.—l am, etc., H. E. STURGE. Havelock North. March 7, 1930.