AN AUCKLANB GRIEVANCE.

NZ Truth, Issue 253, 30 April 1910, Page 4

AN AUCKLANB GRIEVANCE.

The Closing of the Oyster Beds.

Northerners want very little inducement to start them on the rampage regarding their alleged grievances and the undue favors shown the south by the sitting Government, and the close season declared for oysters this year is being made another peg to hang a complaint upon. The announcement made on Saturday that the local beds would remain closed tfll May, 1911, and that the public would have to depend solely on the Stewart Island and Bluff supplies naturally caused an unthinking section of the community to "go off pop," and they were promptly bolstered up liy the restauranteurs, to whom the Hauraki Gulf Russel bivalve means hundreds of pounds worth Of business during the season. For two years past the Government extended the socialistic system (which New Zealanders are prone to hold up their hands m holy horror at when called by its proper name) to the oyster business", and the Auckland oyster could not be purchased m the northern capital except through the Government Oyster depot, the pickers being Government employes, and the whole business being m the hands of Mr Ayson, the Chief Inspector of Fisheries. The Auckland oyster is of the rock or deep shell variety, and, m the opinion of some connoiseurs, is better than the "Sydney rock." The Government made a monopoly of tire business. They sold 11,500 sacks, and obtained a revenue of £6938, 20 per cent, of which, after paying all expenses, went into the consolidated revenue. Government jobs are not generally conducted economically, so that the revenue; to be privately derived from the picking and wholesale distribution of oysters , which maintained formerly can easily be imagined. The indiscriminate picking led, no doubt, to the depletion of the oyster beds, but after the careful and supervised picking at the bands of the Departmental officers, it does at first sight seem unreasonable to close the fisheries for a whole season,, and seeing that the. departmental officials' have for three years had these beds m their sole control, and could have refrained from picking at any time they pleased. Evidence forced on us by the total closing ' this year seems to indicate that the damage done to the beds under the Government control system by indiscriminate picking must have been as bad as under the old system, when the oyster boys picked .until matured oysters became too scarce to pay them for their labor. If the beds have been so depleted as to make it necessary to close them for a further 12 months, then the proper thing has been done, and the Auckland squeal can be allowed to pass unheard, but so quick is -the growth; of the oyster m Auckland waters that there appears to be reasonable cause for complaint against the Department m view of the fact that for three years the fields have been entirety under their control.