Huge Sum Required To Check N.Z. Rivers

Northern Advocate, 27 May 1938, Page 3

Huge Sum Required To Check N.Z. Rivers

WELLINGTON. This Day. QjUOTING the formidable total of flood damage this year, the Minis- ! ter of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semple, declared to a deputation from i the Waiapu County Council. East | Coast, which asked for aid to deal j with £22,000 worth of estimated damI age, that theirs was ,-.ot the only I trouble. If they had been hit, sn had I the Government. Flooding Damage, j There was £BO,OOO damage in Taranaki, while the Gisborne floods would 'cost £IOO,OOO, To repair the railway I alone, th.e Hawke’s Bay disaster would run into hundreds of thousands, BoI cause it was so widespread they did not yet know what it was likely to cost. It, was not only n question of restoring roads and bridges, but the Government was committed to assist farmers who had been ruined. There ! was another flood trouble in the 1 Sounds costing from £7OOO to £BOOO, i These troubles were all over New Zeaj land.

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"If seems to me,” added Mr Semple, “that the saving of farm lands all ever New Zealand will cost in the vicinity of from £6.000.000 to £8,000,000 to keep rivers 'under control. The problem is gigantic, and if New Zealand’s valuable farm lands or portions of ft, arc not 1o be washed Into the Pacific, tine rcunlry is faced with tremendous expenditure which must be tackled by scientific methods. It is simply appalling and disgusting to see how this menace has been handled. Look at I lie little slopbanks one little river board has built to throw its troubles on to the other river board." Dcafforestation “Compound Stupidity.’' Mr Gilmour, Waiapu County engineer. remarked that the trouble would be continuous until reafforestation war. carried out in their district. Mr Semple: “Yea. we have done most, stupid things, never giving Nature a chance to function until she has turned on to us. We are paying fer our compound stupidity and wrestling with man-made blunders.”