Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 9 December 1920, Page 2

A phase of the economic question was emphasised by the Mayor of Christchurch in an address he made last week. “Forty million pounds worth of our products were sent out of our couptry in one year to the Old Country and other places, and were brought back again to us for use,” Dr Thacker said at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Industrial Association. “Freight had to bo paid both ways. It is absurd and the position is as" absurd as the fact that wo bring coal from Newcastle to Lyttelton, Timaru, Oamaru, Dunedin, and other ports, and send the vessels round to Westport to load’ with coal for Australia. Nowsprint paper in New Zealand has.doubled in price. It has gone up 100 per cent. For that breakfasttable necessity, the morning newspaper, people liavo to pay 2d instead of Id. While that is going on, the country has a wealth of timber on the West Coast. Tlio trouble at present is that there are too many centres, too many different associations working on their own. We want thorn to gat together. We don’t want to have one of them doing one thing in one corner of the city and another doing another thing in the opposite corner, fl we can not .make a solution, we should try to make an emulsion, as the chemists would say. We want to he lubricated. It is not only paper for newspapers that is concerned, but also paper for bags and other

things. We could supply the whole of Australia, the whole of the Pacific with those artices. We could send paper to the United States. The United States gets now the bulk of its paper from Caaada. We have the Niagara and other steamers with space for our produce, but we haven’t got it to fill the space.” Dr Thacker concluded by suggesting that the Government should pay for land for soldiers by bonds. “It* would bo a fair, straight deal,” he said; “the citizen who has the gold has to ‘antq up’ and the map on the land should be told to ‘ante up’ also. There iB a good deal that is true in the Doctor’s breezy review of the position, and tile interchange now going from this country—sending away its raw products many thousands of miles, and after many months getting hack the manufactured articles. New Zealand requires a boom in tlie establishment of secondary industries, and'tho people require to he educated up to use the Dominion made articles more and more, New Zealand should ho largely selfcontained, considering the enormous amount of raw" products it produces; but wo depend nlmost entirely on the outside markets for our manufactured goods. This inter'-dependonco on other countries for every-day goods in common consumption is one of the causes of the high cost of living which is railed against so often. Yet the remedy is largely in the hands of the people themselves. „

Ai.thouoh the Greymouth Harbour Boa I’d Amendment Act provides that “for the purpose of determining the boundaries of the Greymouth Harbour District,' the Governor-General in Council may appoint a commission finder the Commissions of.lnquiry Act, 1908, and may adopt the report of the Commission either wholly or with such modifications or alterations as he thinks fit, “the Greymouth Harbour Board itself inis taken certain steps which it appears antiepated the duty of the commission very materially. According to the report of the proceedings of tho Board at a meeting this week, the Chairman has communicated with the Treasury notifying the names of local bodies likely to be affected by the creation of a special rating area. Tho list is very comprehensive and is as follows:—Boroughs of Greymouth, Brunner, Runanga, Rumara, Hokitika and Ross, Town Board of Cobden; Counties of Grey, Westland and Inangahua. This is a very extensive area and so far as this district is concerned, includes a large area which has already its obligations for harbour expenditure here. The Borough of Ross and Hokitika ami a considerable portion of tho County of Westland, embracing Araliura, Kanieri, Kokatahi, Rimu and the major portion of the Totara districts are contributing already to fi special rating area for harbour facilities. A double Joadipg woulf} be inequitable, while tlip rpmpteness of other parts of Westland Gqunty suggest a greater inequity.in regard to what is a very considerable area of the County district. The local bodies of Westland require to be alert as to the movement taken by tho Greymouth Harbour Board. The action in anticipating what is essentially tho work of tho commission, seems to bo open to question, and at tho proper time and place this objection should be made. As to the act itself there are specially grave objections, for tho new district will bo saddled with old debts in the contracting of which it had no say, nor does it appear likely that in the new board it will have any voice, because there is no provision for district representation. Tho Bill has not been fairly drawn in any way, and tho haste with which it was put through Parliament suggests that the Government did not fairly weigh the issues of the ease so far as they affected tho public outside of the immediate location of tho past lavish expenditure.