IRRIGATION WORK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23405, 22 July 1939, Page 14

IRRIGATION WORK

FIVE EWES TO ACBE GREAT POSSIBILITIES ' POPULATION OF 10,000,000 MR. SEMPLE'S FIRM BELIEF • [by telegraph —press association] DUXEDIX, Friday '•From the results obtained to date from irrigation works, it is conservative to predict that with full economic and intensive development the average land of the Canterbury Plains, which now carries one ewe per acre, will carry five eives. Thus, instead of 3,000,000 sheep, one-tenth of the total New Zealand llock, the plains will carf-y 15,000,000 sheep, or about half of tiio total present (lock. This is not taking into account great increases which will necessarily result in the cattle population and also in various crops and, in particular, the small seed product." Smaller Farms Possible In these words, the Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R- Semple, envisaged the possibilities of the extension of the Government's present irrigation policy, in an interview this evening. Mr. Semple has recently completed an inspection of the Rangitata irrigation scheme, which is in progress in South Canterbury, and has been deeply impressed by the work and by the .possibilities which the results of similar schemes on a smaller scale have opened up. "The economic farm unit could bo reduced from between 300 and 400 acres to from 100 to 250 acres, with an average of about 200 acres," continued Mr. Semple. "This would result in an increase oi the rural population of the Canterbury Plains by more than 10,000, and oi the total population by more than 100,000, or an additional 43 per cent of the present population." An Economic Possibility The irrigation of the Canterbury Plains, Mr. Semple contended, was an economic possibility, as had been demonstrated by the results obtained by the complete mechanising of the Rangitata scheme. "New Zealand must be populated, the Minister said. "The country could carry 10,000,000 people if it was fully developed and the greater the population the less vtitt be the burden of taxation. Population also constitutes the best and only proper defence of New Zealand. The only way to make this country impregnable is to have man power." One and a-half million people cannot hold this country for ever. Irrigation and a natural increase of population, which will have been so provided with a means of livelihood, is the way to meet this danger, and up-to-date methods of carrying out such extensive works have made it possible for them to be undertaken."