The Hokitika Guardian MONDAY, MAY 8th, 1922. HELPFUL OR OTHERWISE.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian MONDAY, MAY Bth, 1922. HELPFUL OR OTHERWISE.

Tiir.uK was occasion last week to comment on the action of the Forestry Department in opposing an application for a small matter of protection in a very helpful attitude towards Westland’s most important industry. Unfortunately the antagonism of the Department to the progress of tho industry in 1\ estland is not an isolated case. There was another case last week. In that iiistance the matter at. dispute was not a large one, but the principle involved was the same. Though it was an individual instead of a company, tho personal loss to the settler would be as material in the relative sense. Fortunately tho Warden exercised reasonable discretion in the matter and granted the application for protection under terms which were fair and fully protected public interests. The two instances we are very much afraid are only examples of the raiding designs of the Forestry Department on tile lands of Westland in particular. We noticed from the re* port of the Acclimatisation Society meeting the other day, that the holder of a shooting license may h&t nfiw go oil fhrest areas for his sport! There are over .a million acres of forestry reserve in Westland, so the’range for legitimate shooting is thus very much curtailed. Now we hear of a raid on the part of the Forestry Department on some of the pastoral lands of Westland. There is an area of rich river bed land up the Hokitika river which this precious Department is anxious to secure for nursery purposes. Notwithstanding its million and more acres all over Westland, this unhelpful Department to Westland’s progress must needs seek to put a soldier settler off the land lh question and appropriate the area to itself, Eronl the Departmental point' of view there is no doubt some method in the madness of the act; The land is cheap, in that it is crown lands aiid may. be appropriated by tlie Department under its extraordinary legal powers as it wills; also, it is cleared river-made land ready to operate upon at once. If there is an mousing side to this attempt to oust a producing soldier settler, it is in the fact that this land was purchased by the Government nnd the local body many years ago as a site for tailings from the Heddoff’s Terrace workings! The alternative to the pUrcbase was nil injunction to stop milling: the ladings froth the mining are xloU'ly makiiig their way rivenvards. lit due coiirse of time even the Forestry nursery will he obliterated. Also there is a liability of river erosion. The Department mig well take up other laud for its experiments, If trees are to be grown ill Westland, it is oil the terrace latids, which are “hot being used fbr agridultutal or pnstoml purposes, rind where forests grew before; that the Department should pursue its policy. Apart from the injustice proposed to be done to the soldier in possession of the area at present, there is the danger of the frittering away of more public money is forestry schemes in danger of lieing destroyed by tailings or washed away by the river. These present examples of Forestry methods suggest how unhelpful the Department is proving to interests at large throughout the district. Apart from its great and overburdening expense the Department at every turn seems to run counter to public interests in Westland. Why it should go on in this way and be so j hostile to local developments and pro-. gress is only to he accounted for by i the fact that Westland is to be mado the victim for sacrifice that the lie-' partment may exist. ’ |