H.—29

Miscellaneous Advances, Grants, Subsidies, &c. —The payments under this section have been heavy and wide in their distributive incidence. Carriage of lime, fertilizers, and farm-produce absorbed £362,330 ; assistance to fruit industry, £162,514 ; noxious weeds eradication, £75,205 ; Hawke's Bay flood assistance, £11,783 ; assistance to pig-industry, £8,077 ; and numerous small grants, &c., £16,655. Although a very material volume of the work of the Accounts Division has been in direct relationship to the actual monetary requirements of the Department, statistical and investigational problems of indirect monetary significance have required considerable attention. Costs were compiled and submitted for the consideration of the Committee which dealt with the 1938-39 season's guaranteed price for butterfat. A report oil many aspects of the meat-freezing industry required association with action arising out of problems presented therein ; a similar but less exacting association has prevailed in connection with lime production and distribution. Two senior officers have been called upon to undertake extensive confidential compilations, and the calls for general statistical data have been material and steady in volume. There appears to be a steadily increasing demand for the monthly Produce Notes issued by the Investigational and Statistical Section. These activities, coupled with the volume of work involved under the scheme whereby the fruit industry received monetary assistance on realizations from fruit marketed in the Dominion, prevented development of many desirable avenues of statistical exploration more "closely related to primary agriculture. Steps in co-operation with the Editor to achieve circulation pre-eminence for the Journal of Agriculture throughout the Dominion have also involved work for my Division. The efforts, however, have been successful, and the wide circulation of the Journal is now an assurance that a measure of permanence has been added to many of the intangible aspects of departmental service. I have received from my staff and officers associated with general accountancy matters throughout the Dominion another year of hearty support and co-operative effort, and I desire to record an acknowledgment of my indebtedness to all concerned.

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