The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY. LEVIN. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1915. A DAIRY FARM FOR WELLINGTON HOSPITAL.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 31 March 1915, Page 2

The Chronicle PUBLISHED DAILY. LEVIN. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1915. A DAIRY FARM FOR WELLINGTON HOSPITAL.

A daily turm for the Wellington Ho»pitjil still is meditated by the Wellington Hospital Board. A resolve to .'•iibinit details to the local bodies that are levied upon to supply the board's revouues was come U> at a meeting held last Monday, and a special committee i.s engaged in drawing up a iist a' arguments and instances to convince the contributing bodies that the board's proposal is practicable and reasonable- 111 its essence, the proposal "is'' admirable. In its details, some delects are apparent. Why need the board invest in a dairy larm that is some twenty miles from Wellington > It pure and undepreciated milk is the hospital's cliiei need, what i>. the justification for incurring the sjini-churning process of rail-transit of the milk ? Incidentally there have been assertions made by correspondents of the New Zealand Times that the hum's value is an inflated one. The bjard's proposal to purchase at some l'4o per acre second-class land that w as sold lor a t rifle over £'32 per icre some ten years ago was cited by one correspondent as a proof that the land u as over-valued; but to our mind that contention lails. .All pastoral ami agricultural land ill this province has increased in value greatly during the last decade, and on pape:' the rise of some 73 per cent, in the value of some | of the Upper Hutt and Matarawa farms is not unreasonable. liut what is unreasonable, to our mind, 'is the board's detenu illation to go so far aliekl lor its tarm. The Minister for Public Health has given his undertaking to sanction an expenditure of £85.000 should tile board's contributors (local bodies) agree. ill doing this, we take It, the Minister, gives no personal approval to the scheme ; lie simply administers the Act in an impartial spirit. The permission is inoperative until the local bodies sancti,.i, the expenditure. As Levin Borough Council and Fiorowhontia County Council are amongst the uoii tributaries, The Chronicle suggests that they take efleetive steps and early to have the Hospital Board's proposal amended, and put on safer lines than it follows at present. Wellington suburbs afford ample scope for the running of a small dairy farm controlled by the board. If a sufficient area cannot be obtained in one block it can be got in two or three sections; at Island Bay. Mitclielltown. Brooklyn, Kilbirnic or other localities contiguous to the hospital grounds. There are hundreds of acres of Town Belt lands (some actually abutting on Wellington Hospital grounds) that have been leased bv the Corporation of Wellington to cowkeepers and horseowners for years past—on annual leases for the most part. Probably the Wellington City Council would consider favourably an application by the board for a threeyears' lease of (say) two hundred acres of these lands. In that event the board could make its experiment at a cost of about £2500, for live and dead stock, wages, etc., and be in a position to increase its outlay, or curtail it—as experience might guide—without in-

volviug the contributing bodies in a possible loss that probably would run into some £10,000 or £15,000 if the farm experiment utterly failed. In ventures such as these the first steps should be cautious ones. If the City Corporation cannot or will not see its way to cancel the yearly leases now existing, the board can make a firm offer for the area it requires, and.have the tender' recorded in the Town Clerk's reference book lor submission to the council's committee that administers the Town Belt. In luc course -the offer would be considered by the councillors as a whole, and the public interests should and no doubt would prevail as a matter of principle. And even if the Town licit area were not granted, there would remain lor •purchase several freehold, areas that are in suitable juxtaposition for amalgamation. and situated within one mile of the hospital grounds. The board's wish would be easier effected in lliat situation than in the case of an area twenty miles off. Wo submit our ideas and suggestions to the Hospital Board's special committee, for consideration, and in the hope that Hie expense of acquiring any freehold farm will be avoided until the dairy-farm venture is brought out of the experimental stages and the suitableness of the farm staff to administer it 'becomes apparent in the quality of work achieved.