Seed Testing Station

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24895, 7 June 1946, Page 6

Seed Testing Station

The Canterbury Progress League is to be congratulated on its decision to continue to press for the-removal of the Government’s seed testing station from Palmerston North to the South Island. Mr J. E. Strachan touched the right spe' when he said u , . . there is a principle involved “which is important to this country “ —whether the will of the people “is to be carried out or the will of “a department which seems to be “ acting in a most bureaucratic way “in this instance”. In other words, it is a question whether the testing station is to be retained in the North Island for the convenience of a handful of public servants or whether it is to be removed to the South Island for the benefit of the producers of |he seeds, 97 per cent; of which are grown in the south. The stubborn refusal of the Minister of Agriculture to agree to the latter course is capable of no other explanation than that he is consideu»ing the wishes of a section of the Public Service before the benefit of the public; the futility of the only explanation offered—that the girls working at the station would not come to- the South Island and that the transfer of the plant would involve great difficulties—makes no other interpretation possible. Neither excuse makes sense. If some of the girls come south, others can be trained. Some are bound to be lost to the service in any case, sooner or later, for marriage or other reasons. And if the Minister of Agriculture would consult the Minister of Rehabilitation he could suggest the employment on this work of disabled servicemen, many of whom should welcome the opportunity of earning a living in a congenial and useful occupation. The transfer of the plant can present no *difficu]ty that by any reasonable standard can be regarded as insuperable or even unusually exacting. It could be done without fuss if the will to do it were there. In the interval, until the only sensible course is decided on, South Island producers must continue to be delayed and inconvenienced at possibly very considerable cost. The only remedy is to continue to apply the pressure until the Minister sees the light and overrides the obstructionists in the department that he is supposed to control