CORRESPONDENCE

Southland Times, Issue 19821, 18 March 1926, Page 9

CORRESPONDENCE

THE COAL MINERS. To the Editor. Sir, —Permit me to correct an error in the Southland Tinies published 11/3/26. The error is that none of the Southern Unions are affiliated with the United Mine Workers’ organisation. The above is not correct, as the Nightcaps Miners’ Union is affiliated and has been for some time.— I am, etc., JAMES HAGAN, Secretary.

THE LOCHIEL RABBIT BOARD.

To the Editor. Sir, —As an outsider in this matter will .vou allow me to pass a few remarks anent the ramifications of the Lochiel Rabbit Board in the interest of the public generally? All sorts and conditions of projects nowadays are backed up by subsidies from the Government, and I presume it is the duty of the heads of the departments interested to see that moneys so granted are spent to the best advantage. In any big undertaking, public or private, there is invariably a certain amount of leakage or waste, but one of the most glaring cases of working on Government subsidies for purely local advantage is that of the Lochiel Rabbit Board. This body collects rates over the area under its control, obtains the £ for £ subsidy, and then hands the rates back to the ratepayers, plus in some few cases 25 per cent. The latter is given to a favoured few, who are on the boundary, ostensibly because they have to contend against the rabbits coming in from land over which the board has. no control. The board has been in existence some 3J years or about that, and has in that time collected just on £5OO, £220 of which was from the Government. Of this £5OO the munifi-, cent sum of £lO was spent on poison and labour and £lOO on the expenses of administration such as printing, advertising, salaries, etc., etc. Readers will please note that it cost £lOO to spend £lO in the actual killing of rabbits. Surely a gross miscarriage of public money. The statute which allows such a farce to be enacted requires drastic amendment, and it is surely time that the general taxpayer entered an emphatic protest against such a gross misuse of public funds. The only reason why such a protest has not been made long ago is simply because outside the members of the board and the officials immediately concerned no one had any conception that such a scheme was being carried out at the expense of the Government. It is an absurdity to usepublic money to pay a landowner on one side of a fence to kill his own rabbits, while bis neighbour on the other side is compelled by the rabbit inspector to keep the pest under at his own expense, yet this is being done in the district referred to. Think it over readers and ask yourselves the question, Is it a fair thing?—l am, etc., TOM GILLER. Myr ops Bush, March 16, 1926.