THE WAIMANA DISPUTE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 200, 7 January 1942, Page 4

THE WAIMANA DISPUTE

Sir—Your sub-leader in the Beacon of 22nd of December in advocating the winding up of the above dispute will be appreciated by all who have the welfare of the Wai-mana-Nukuhou district at heart. Like most disputes there will probably be found faults: on all sides, not excepting the County Council, for it has been in the power of this body to write "finis" to this play at any stage of the game. The usual practise of local bodies and also the Government engineers, when taking new roads through fenced land, is to connect up again the fences along the new road side. In this case there was about 25 chains of fencing to do and if the usual standard of fencing used in the district was used, it would not have been costly, but the Council failed to finish its job. Perhaps the Council felt that it had suffered annoyance, for it had built a good bridge and embankment over the Raroa river, which obviated the necessity of farmers having to swim their milk cows through dangerous floods, thereby adding hundreds of po<unds to the value of lands/ but when the Council required an acre or so> of river bed to erect proteo* tion works to prevent the bridge being lost, it had to spend money and waste time in taking it under Public Works Act.

This is not sufficient reason however, why the whole district should be penalised and its. reputation destroyed. Nor is it a reason why the travelling public should be penalised in having to spend an hour or so in opening and -closing gates, including those erected across a public road by the County Council. Recently a wrifer in another Dominion newspaper protested against several miles of fine fishing waters of the Waimana river, being practically closed to anglers by these obstacles.

It is also unfortunate that this dispute is damaging a very fertile district where in jjraatise it had been shown that two families can live in comfort on 80 acres and those on farms as small as 76 acres are prospering. When the war is ovef there will be a wave of returning men who could be. accommodated on such land, but they will justly expect to be able, to cease fighting.

To those who think they can go on getting amusement out of disputes such as the above, it might hot be out of the way to say that it is not necessary to> stage this sort of thing in the Whakatane county, for the outside world is full of opportunity for a display of combative feelings.

In the above district there ' are blocks of land ranging from 500 to thousands of acres, suitable for further small farm settlement, so if the County Council can remove 1 the disability referred to, it will assist in the development of county lands and increase the population for defence purposes. Yours etc., ARBITRATOR.