FORESTRY SCHOOL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20359, 17 July 1934, Page 13

FORESTRY SCHOOL.

Reasons Against Closing Stated. DEPUTATION’S VIEWS. The importance of research work in forestry development, the need for trained men in the industry, and the economic advantages of preserving and maintaining forest areas were arguments adduced by a deputation from the North Canterbury Advisory Committee on Tree Planting which waited on Canterbury members of Parliament yesterday afternoon urging them to approach the Government for the reiteration of the grant to the School of Forestry at Canterbury College. The deputation comprised Messrs J. R. Wilkinson, J. E. Strachan, O. Duff, C. Rands, N. Goldsbury, A. Buckingham and James Deans. The members of Parliament present were Messrs D. G. Sullivan, E. J. Howard, IT. Holland. Mrs E. R. M’Combs and the Hon Sir R. Heaton Rhodes, M.L.C. False Economy. As chairman of the committee Mr Wilkinson introduced the deputation. Fie said that the withdrawal of the Government grant meant the closing of the School of Forestry at Canterbury College. The committee had protested to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education because it considered that the closing of the school was false economy and a retrograde step. Mr Strachan stated that the Hon R. Masters, when the protest was placed before him, adduced the argument that the school was costing £IOOO a year, and that there was no work for the graduates of the school to do. This was rather a striking case of a phenomenon sometimes called laughing at the wrong place. Perhaps it was a joke on the committee that there was no work for the graduates of the school to do, but from the committee’s point of view the joke was in another place. The first of the members of Parliament to reply, Mr Howard, declared himself to be 100 per cent with the deputation. The Minister, Mr Howard said, when replying to representations on behalf of the School of Forestry, used the excuse that many degree men in the employ of the Department were on the long-handled shovel. But the same could be said for many graduates of the arts courses. Necessary Economy. Mr Holland said that he did not want to strike a discordant note, and, while he supposed that the fitting thing to say was that he was in full sympathy with the arguments put forward, he felt that it was only right to draw attention to the fact that the country was passing through a phenomenally severe economic crisis. Duplication had occurred in the work of the State Forestry Department and the School of Forestry, and on the score ot necessary economy the Government had been forced to withdraw its grant to the school. Mr Holland said that he would require a good deal more evidence than he had heard before he could pledge himself to support any big expenditure in forestry, Mr Sullivan said that the arguments put forward by the deputation had anticipated the statements’ made bv Mr Holland.