GREAT POTENTIALITIES SEEN IN COMPLETION OF ROAD OVER HAAST PASS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27388, 13 May 1950, Page 8

GREAT POTENTIALITIES SEEN IN COMPLETION OF ROAD OVER HAAST PASS

Most maps of New Zealand show a dotted road line connecting Otago with South Westland over the Haast Pass. Other more optimistic cartographers show the highway as an accomplished fact. Unfortunately, their drawings are premature. But the representatives of Otago, Westland, Southland and Nelson who met at Fox Glacier recently hope by their efforts to alter that position. They feel that, until the connecting link in the South Island road circuit is completed, incalculable returns are being lost from a potential national asset.

It is a paradoxical fact that a surplus of labour prevented the road from being finished before the war, while a shortage of labour is one of the main difficulties facing its completion today. This is explained by the fact that much of the road was built to absorb the surplus of man-power in the depression period, and it was specified at the time that it should be constructed as far as possible without mechanical aids. Work was still going on when the war came, but soon had to be reduced to a maintenance basis. Since the war a certain amount of work has been done from Haast up towards the pass, but it has been considerably restricted by the lack of men and material.

The position now is that two gaps in the highway will have to be bridged before South Westland is opened up and a full round trip will be possible in the South Island. They are: Between Paringa and Haast, a 35mile stretch through rugged, heavilytimbered country, which will require three or four major bridges and many smaller structures.

Between the end of the eight-mile strip of road which has been completed up the valley from Haast to the present Otago terminal, a few miles over the Haast Saddle. This gap is of about 28 miles and will also require several bridges.

Until these gaps' are covered by the road, the £1,000,000 investment which the nation has in the existing highway cannot produce anything near its full return. The immediate financial return from the highway would doubtless come from the tourist industry, for it will traverse some of the most magnificent forest and mountain scenery in the world. ' Apart from domestic tourists, overseas visitors will be able to see most of the South Island’s scenic attractions in two weeks of easy travelling without the present necessity for wasting time and money in “back-tracking.” Apart from scenery, the area can offer visitors some of the best fishing and shooting in New Zealand—points which mean much to a great number of the people who come on tour from overseas.

Cattle Raising

But in the long-term view, the highway can mean much more in the country’s economy. To most people, South Westland means only mountains, bush and glaciers They would probably be surprised to know that the sleepy township of Ross, the Westland railhead, was third on the list of livestock exporting stations in the South Island. Cattle raising is already one of the main industries in South Westland, and a magnificent type of animal is yarded at Wataroa or trucked from Ross. Yet many of these cattle have been on the road for six .weeks from Okuru, on the plains which stretch away from the Haast River to Jackson’s Bay. With road access, extensive areas of new land could be brought into production and the stock sent out to the markets without the present difficulties and hazards. All the way down the coast there are semi-swamp-lands which could be made fine pastures by clearing out scattered bush and punga fern, draining, and limespreading. This new land would have a double value —it would offer fine possibilities for settlement and would eventually mean a substantial increase in primary production available for home consumption and for export. To settlers in the area, the completion of the highway is more than a dream—it is an urgent necessity. They consider that their pasture land is already being menaced by deer, and that heavy culling is essential. They state that some of the finest stands of timber are also being menaced by deer, which eat away the undergrowth. The contention that the completed highway would avert the menace is given point by their experience with the existing road over the Haast Saddle. At the top of the pass pastures near the road have become almost as lush as they were years ago before the deer invasion. Roading makes deer-stalking easier, and the quarry retreats into less accessible country. Forest Resources In the development of the southern country, however, there would be an earlier return from the forest lands. The tumbled masses of mountain which

stretch from the Alps to the sea between Paringa and Haast are densely timbered. Westlanders and the State Forest Service differ considerably on their estimates of the amount of timber which would be available for felling, but there is no doubt that the opening up of this country would make available millions of board feet for the timber-hungry towns on the east coast of the island.

The riches of this wild mass of mountains may not be dependent solely on timber. There are traces of many minerals, including gold and coal, but competent and extensive geological surveys would be needed to prove the extent and location of the deposits. Away to the south-east are the Red Hills, thought to contain payable amounts of iron oxide, and extensive limestone deposits and patches of fireclay are known in the district. Some of the older settlers consider that the productive wealth of the Haast district lies not in the land, but in the sea. Already trawlers operating from ports in the north are taking some of the thousands of crayfish from Jackson's Bay, and the tails are exported in quantity to America. Blue cod abounds off South Westland, but many people feel that steps will have to be taken to curb the growth of the seal population on the coast if the fishing grounds are to be kept fully stocked. Whitebait catching and canning from the. fast-flowing rivers of the area is already a major industry. The completion of the highway would have one other important merit —it would be of tremendous aid if the island ever had to be defended. “ Dead-end ” roads can never be regarded as economically sound, but frofn the defence viewpoint they are more than unsound—they are highly dangerous. These are some of the arguments advanced by those peojfie who would like to see the road completed as early as possible. There are, naturally, cogent arguments which could be applied against any such proposition. What would it cost? Many people ask that. • There is no easy answer, but on present-day values it would probably involve about £1,000,000. Others see it as a problem of men and machines, rather than money and motives. That is something which would have, to be faced up to, and possibly would be integrated closely in the overall question of immigration. These problems are acknowledged, but they are not regarded as insurmountable Those who are advocating the completion of the highway are taking the long-term view—their contention is that the eventual returns would far outweigh any temporary hardships, and they stress the fact that the project is a national one with a potential national reward. As such, they maintain that the parochial objections of any single area must be subordinated to the major plan.