Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24th, 1920. PAYING THE PIPER.

Hokitika Guardian, 24 November 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24th, 1920. PAYING THE PIPER.

Last week we turned attention, inter alia, to the costly nature of the Forestry Department being set up in this country. It is very nice to have these well-ordorcd and regulated departments with their equipment of officers, but if we delight in the tune, the piper has to be paid or the music will be lacking. We have,, of course, great admiration for the aims and objects of the Forestry / Department. 'Hie catalogue of its scope of operations reads very well. But there must be sanity about the methods of administration!. The country is over-run already .with officials of one sort and another, and public attention has been called to the fact previously, and .brought directly under the notice pi the Prime Minister by a public institution. On this forestry question we want to know what the administration is going to cost and can the country afford to pay for it all? Just consider the position in some detail for a moment. What were the financial arrangements made for the Forestry Department in the recent session of Parliament? When our readers learn of the hundreds of thousands of pounds being provided to establish the new Department, those of them with a regard fqir the financial position of the country, and its ability to pay its way without increasing taxation will be rather surprised at the actual figures. In the main Estimates the Government put down a Forestry Department vote of £142,000, and in the Supplementary Estimates a further vote of £148,000, thus making £290,000 in all In addition to this, power was taken in the Finance Act to borrow no less a sum than £500,000 for forestry purposes. The main items in the Forestry Department ' votes were £102,000 for the purchase of Traunson’s kauri forest, near Dargaville, £3OOO for the School of Forestry, £7,500 for plantation work, £6185 for fire prevention, and £BOO for forest investigation and i timber study. The department is now going on with the preparation of forest areas for milling purposes, and the demarcation of forests; and is starting on the scientific investigation of forests with a view to ascertaining not only the rate of growth, but also the economic potentialities of our native trees, j It will also devote itself to the extension of the existing plantations, and to the encouragement of tree-planting, I for shelter arid other purposes, by farmers and by local leaders. A contemporary which makes some references to what we said previously, says the objection on the score of expense is specious and dictated by purely local and individualistic reasons—whatever that means—and adds that the estimated^ - cost per acre of such an administration is only three farthings per acre, while at a low estimate an acre of timber land should return the State £l2, so that, says the' critic, each acre would provide for its own administration for a period about 3000 years! Truly Sir George Grey was not in it in his desire to provide for the unborn millions, compared with the forestry experts. But as to the finance. There are now about seven million acres of Forestry lands, and at three farthings per acre less than £22,000 should be required for the administration, yet the Department lias taken authority up to £290,000 out of the revenue of the country, and in addition is going to borrow half a million! Nearly £BOO,000, we submit with all seriousness, is too much for a new Department setting out, and if the protest is not made now, when is it to be made ? It will he too late after the money is spent and the country is contemplating an empty exchequer. As to the earning power of these acres it is set down at £l2 per acre. Last year the country got £8419 in this district equal only to 700 acres, but if wo take thirty million feet out and average it at twenty thousand to the acre, we get a product of 1,500 acres. This would give a revenue to the State of about £IB,OOO. About a quarter of the State forestry country is on the West Coast, and its average of the £290,000 which is to come out . of revenue, would he £72,500. On the j year there would he a loss of £54,500 | on the Coast alone. This will fall on J the public. Further the public will j have to pay more and more for timber. | The royalties will require to advance > to produce the £l2 per acre, and that | increased import will be passed on to the public. The public will pay both ways all the time. The present move about a Forestry Department is akin

to the action years ago ill constituting a Roads Department. It was cut off-, from the Public WorkJ» Department j and with a. plethora of officers and what | not, it became an added fifth wheel j very expensive to run. When the wheels got hot through stringency of j finance the country said the Roads Department must go, and it went--the Public Works resuming control and with its original staff doing the work well. Now the Forestry Department is being cut out from the Lands Department, and the administrative officers hitherto connected with the la-ter will be drawn on to supply the Forestry Department with a staff. Another steam hammer is being forged to crack a nut, and thg country has to pay for the sportive mood of the Minister or Government responsible for this latest extravagance.; Forestry work as be- j ing carried out heretofore could be im- | proved upon without creating a new j and costly set of officers for the job, and what j.be new department proposes to do can be done no less efficiently by the old staff, which has the same opportunity of extending its knowledge local and general as other branches of the public administration. The country cannot afford to take on his new burden at the figure indicated by the Fstimates, and the sooner this is realised generally the better.