BANNOCKBURN.

Evening Star, Issue 19802, 28 February 1928, Page 4

BANNOCKBURN.

Tm: troubles of one irrigation settlement not under Government administration were set out in our yesterday s issue. That was an example of company control. Wo have been asked to give an outline of the difficulties of a settlement under the remaining form of control, which is, or should he, a system of local self-government. There are three local body schemes, all under the Vincent County Council—Bannockburn (about 1,700 acres), Matakanni (about 5,000 acres), and Blackman’s (about 1,000 acres). The Bannockburn water supply is drawn froip Coal Creek, one of t! tributaries of the Nevis. The length of the head race is about sixteen miles. It is an old mining race, which is said to have cost originally about £30,000 to construct. Naturally a race of that length requires a fair sum annually for maintenance, but the complaint made ia that the board administering the race has been so neglectful in this matter that a state of disrepair has been reached because of which only between one and two heads of water are delivered to the irrigation rrea out of ton heads drawn from the intake. The settlers who suffer from this grave undersupply declare that they are powerless to improve this bad ■ administration. Sixteen out of the twenty-one settlers in the area have called on the board to resign and make way for one which will take a serious view' of its responsibilities. But the sitting board defies anyone to shift it. For five years it has remained in office, the only change being when one member resigned and his successor was appointed without an election, and even without his being aware of his new status until a considerable lapse of time. When the dissatisfied settlers attended the annual meeting and demanded tho board’s resignation and a fresh election t..ey were told they had no standing because they were in arrears with their rates. On (his deficiency being made good they again pressed their claim, but wore again ruled out of order. Thus they despair of being able to bring about reform, for the position appears to bo that tho present board holds office for life. Tho settlers are convinced that this is not constitutional. Nor are they by any means satisfied that the board is within its rights in declining to give any details of an annual expenditure of about £I,OOO. fn view of tho board’s neglect of the proper maintenance of tho race there is a keen desire to know in whjit direction this money has been spent; and it is all the keener since the board’s recent announcement of tho possibility of the settlers being charged a maintenance rate in addition to the water rates. These latter are particularly heavy, our information being that they range between £1 and £2 per rcre. Here again is an example cf the iniquity of tho principle, common to all Otago irrigation schemes, of making the charges on a basis of the acreage of irrigable land held, instead of on the amount of water supplied. Earlier in this month, during the time of our representative’s visit to Bannockburn, one of the settlers was distributing water for tho first time this season nvor part of his area. Ho had not done so before because no water had been available there. In fact, so poor had been the supply that ho had been forced to concentrate his “ quota ” on about one-fourth of his irrigable area and allow tho other three-fourths to go dry. Moreover, it was only by five of the settlers forming a working party and cleaning out a section of the race, that they were able to get any water at all to their holdings. To men who work a i average of sixteen hours a day during tlio season, and are unable to ascertain what part of the revenue they

find the board for this purpose is pplied in that direction, this rankles as an injustice. It seems plain that the need for independent investigation into irrigation in Central Otago is not confined to the schemes under the control of the Public Works Department. It is evident, for one thing, that far too large a proportion of irrigation settlers have to obtain outside work on wages to make enough money to enable them to hang on to their sections in-the hope of needed relief being some day granted them from burdensome charges and inefficient administration, instead of their holdings sufficing to give them a livelihood.