LORD BLEDISLOE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3959, 28 January 1930, Page 14

LORD BLEDISLOE.

LAND DRAINAGE REGULATION. In the absence of Lord O’Hagan, Mr P. J. Hannon presided at a meeting of the Council of the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture held at the Surveyors’ Institution, Great George street, Westminster, when the chairman referred to the appointment of Lord Bledisloe as the next Governor-General of New Zealand and said that they desired to convey to him their sincere congratulatons on the distinguished honour conferred on him by the King and to wish him all success and prosperity during his five years of administrative responsibility. It was agreed that a suitable minute should be placed on the records and that an appropriate communication should be sent to Lord Bledisloe. Lord Bledisloe, who was chairman of the Royal Commission on Land Drainage in 1927, referring to his appointment as Governor-General of New Zealand, said he regretted that for five years he would have to sever a long association with many agricultural friends belonging to several agricultural organisations, and not least among them his friends of the old Central Chamber of Agriculture, which, he would like to fee', would continue in the future and find some useful outlet to its activities. It must be remembered that the Central Chamber had been a great collective protagonist in the old days. Put for it, many difficult problems would never have been tackled and the Ministry of Agriculture might never have come into existence. With regard to the drainage question, he said that although the minor water-courses might be important, and the condition of many of them was far from what it ought to be, the main consideration which dominated the commission’s deliberatons was that if they wanted to have an effective drainage system they must get absolute clearances in their main outlets. What was happening was that in the case of every great river and estuary, with the exception of the Thames, there had been forming great silt barriers, which resulted in the raising of the beds of the water-courses, and, what was more serious, the raising of the water table or level of water through-

out the country. The burden of dealing with the problem should not be laid entirely on the shoulders of landowners and farmers. Those who were responsible for the increased flow of refuse, etc., into the upper water-courses, especially in urban areas, should share the burden.