To Combat Droughts.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 June 1921, Page 1

To Combat Droughts.

N.S.W. SEEKS NATIONAL SCHEME. SYDNEY, June 1. Ono of the most, important moves in the history of this State has been commenced by the New South Wales Labour Government. Tt has called a conference of exports who .are to devise a scheme by which the effects of the recurrent droughts may be. mitigated. The problem is a huge and complex one, and although every thinking man realised clearly that the future development of ibis State was bound up with its solution, every Government baulked at it. Decades have passed in talk and nothing has been achieved. The general idea, which is to create a sort of insurance against droughts, involves a number of problems, such as : How to conserve water, and to what extent the conservation of water should go hand-in-hand with irrigation; the encouragement, of farmers to produce fodder in the good seasons, to be preserved and stored in convenient places, for use when required; the class of fodder to be grown and stored; the organisation of the railways for use. in time of emergency, but more particularly the creation of a scheme by which the railways will be used for the concentration of fodder in slack seasons. The matter of finance, of course, bulks largely in the consideration of such a scheme. It is proposed that the Stato Government and the combined pastoral industry should be joint partners in the scheme, and that each should put up half a million a year for five years. At the end of that time, according to the estimate of one very practical member of the conference, the organisation should be self-supporting and soundly established. The various experts who were called together formed themselves into a general committee, under the chairmanship of the State Treasurer, and have arranged to meet once a week. Meanwhile, the main problem has been split up into a number of little problems, along the lines indicated above, and these will bo dealt with separately by sub-committees. The general committee will gather together the results of the smaller committee’s decisions, and from this will prepare a scheme for submission to Parliament. The manner in which the-resources of the big organisation will bo brought to the aid of the individual farmer has not been indicated. The idea, presumably, is to save his stock from loss, rather than compensate him for loss—a thing vastly more important from the point of view of the State, which has suffered many severe set-hacks as the result of the wholesale wiping-out of sheep and cattle in drought years.