USEFULNESS PROVED

Southland Times, Issue 21835, 12 October 1932, Page 8

USEFULNESS PROVED

WINTON EXPERIMENTAL FARM. COMMISSION’S REPORT CONDEMNED. (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, October 11. “Small matters usually find a weakness in armour that is supposed to be invulnerable and this has been demonstrated through the proposals of the National Expenditure Commission regarding the Winton Experimental Farm,” Mr P. A. do la Perrelle said in the course of his speech on the financial debate in the House of Representatives this afternoon. The commission not only recommended the withdrawal of the subsidy for this farm, but stated that the farm should be abolished because it had outlived its usefulness. “Where did the commission get its information?” he asked. “Certainly not from the Minister of Agriculture nor from the Director-General of Agriculture because they regarded the farm as being of material vaue to the farming community and certainly not from the people of Southland. “This shakes one’s confidence in the findings of the commission generally,” Mr Perrollo said. “The area continues to serve a mast useful purpose in the best farming province in the Dominion."

The same remark applied to the closing of the Lands Registry and Stamp Office in Invercargill, Mr Perrelle added, and quoted from a telegram he had received from the Invercargill Chamber of Commerce which said “This Chamber will support such proposals as to make for true economy, but proposed combination is, we think, economy gone mad.”