The Guardian (And Evening star,with which is in-Corporate the west coast Times.) FRIDAY, AUGUST 27th. 1923 RIOTOUS LIVING

Hokitika Guardian, 27 August 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening star,with which is inCorporate the west coast Times.) FRIDAY, AUGUST 27th. 1923 RIOTOUS LIVING

’lhi v. State Forest Service of New Zealand is enjoying a- period of riotous living. In its omnivorous way, hacked by the most influential and autocratic member of the Cabinet, it is prepared to mop up rill and sundry in order that the Department may lie glorified the more. It is not sufficient that it appropriates to its keeping the Crown timber lands of the country. It has raided already freehold holdings and placed an embargo on the timber products under which the owner of the land is debarred from using the timber economically, but he may ieli it and send it up in smoke! It seeks to stifle private enterprise by watching the millers with the keenness of bootleg-hunters in the desire to wrest possession of reservations to add to their domain of territory under arbitary control. It proposes to commandeer expensively constructed trjfm linos on socialistic principles, so that again the enterprising miller stands in jeopardy of being robbed of t.he fruits of his patient and expensive development It has appropriated already thousands of pounds of local body revenue and the local ratepayers are penalised accordjnglv in having to make good tho loss ,bv extra rating. It has borrowed and D borrow inn huge sums of money to carry on-for which the general taxpayer has to pay the piper. Tho present half million loan on tho stocks will mean a national annual charge of £30,000 to keep this very expensive department on the move—the officials of which are not necessarily engaged on forestrv nil the time, as recent sidelights plainlv indicate per medium of

the feathered world-hat whero there is riotous living there is also tho tendency to high living. And all the time, what is tliis remarkable department doing m the matter of afforestation or reafforestation? Money won from the timber assets of the* country is being used up to keep the salaries anil status of tho staff going. Practical development work, from what can be seen locally. is scarce, while what there is of it. is expensively conducted. Nothing has been done, nothing has been attempted, which a much cheaper and simpler system could not have performed cr undettaken. The organisers of the costly system have created a steam hammer to crack the proverbial nut. The work—such as it. is—which has been performed could have boon done quite as efficiently and certain!} more economically, by the old system under tho Lands Department. Except to gratify a fad it is difficult to see why this expensive department has lieen brought into being. Its work so far his not justified its existence, for tho cost incurred is out of all reason, making the whole undertaking a preposterous commercial -transaction What the folk are slow to ioalixo is that this department is eating its head off as it were, financially. It has all unlimited capacity for using up borrowed money which the tax] aver is lesponsibh* for. It- is just as imlillerout about using up the country's timber assets of forest wealth. In the ordinary course half of the income would go t« tho local bodies which would spend tho amount, on the roads, and besides saving the rate levy on the ratepayers, give im] roved means of communication. But the department appropriates tile whole and keeps on asking loi more. When that “nir.ie" is not sufficient, it puts in a claim for h rrowed tnonev whieli if Idles in liberal amounts til not less than half a million at a time. As a shocking example of riotous living commend us to the Stale Forest Service. It is going the pace, and is ] nxeeding merrily oil its extravagant- way. Its methods are akin t-i tliose of the w in llu* war s| iril, which counted not llu* cost, only that the country might win through. So the Forestry Department does not count the cost of its methods hut it is determined to win through at- all costs, and the hug suffering local ratepayer and general taxpayer goes on unprotestingiy footing tin* hill for the most extravagant Department buidcned on the Dominion.