THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1922. PLAINS ADMINISTRATION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4434, 30 June 1922, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1922. PLAINS ADMINISTRATION.

Wednesday’s conference with the Hauraki Plains County Council and Messrs. O. N. Campbell and E. Taylor, representatives of the Lands Drainage Department, is another step in the development and settlement of the Hauraki Plains in that it marks a stage where the Department considers its purposes fulfilled and completed in certain paits of the Plains and when, in its opinion, the lands are, in the language of the statute, “rendered fit for settlement.” The main contention of the Council was that the Department should metal the roads before handing them over to the local body. On the other hand, the Department contended that it was not part of their scheme to metal the roads. In view of the definite refusal the Council had no option but to give way to the inevitable. With Wednesday’s events fresh in our memory perhaps it would not be out of place here to review the legislation as it concerns the agreement effected by the Council.

Prior to 1908 the Government did not, to any extent, develop swamp lands, and most of what is now known as the Hauraki Plains was under water for the greater part of the year, and was called the Piako Swamp, the haunt of the wild duck and the paradise of the sportsman. Prior to that date the Government had been for years purchasing native lands in this swamp area, so that by 1908 the Crown was the

greatest landholder in. the dis-; trict. The land was bought for prices ranging from 7 s fid to £1 per acre. Although the Crown land was for the most part in one large, irregularly-shaped block, there were interspersed in the Crown areas numerous smaller pieces of native land which the Crown had up to that date been unable or unwilling to buy. There were also small pieces of European-owned freehold property mingled with the Crown land. The Crown did not do as it should have done, It should have purchased a continuous block, which would have simplified its scheme of reclamation and settlement, but in 1908 there was placed on the Statute Book an Act called the Hauraki Plains Acti 1908, which by its title purports to be an Act to provide for the settlement of the Hauraki Plains. By that Act the irregular, and in some cases isolated, pieces of Crown land, which are described in the said Act, were set apart, to be dealt with as the said Act provided. The settlement was entrusted to the Minister of Lands, who by section 3 was authorised to construct and carry on such works as he thought fit for the drainage, reclamation, and reading of the land, or otherwise rendering the same fit for settlement. The words of the section are very general and admit of a wide construction. Presumably the Legislature intended to entrust to the Minister three things; firstly, the operation of drainage and reclamation, which go hand in hand ; then, as a second step, the reading of the said area, and, lastly, the rendering of the lands fit for settlement. It is no doubt in connection with the last two that the views of the departmental officers and the settlers quite naturally differ, because the question immediately arises, bearing prominently in mind the soft and swampy nature of the ground, what is the meaning of the phrase "fit for settlement Before a definition can be given to that, it must be remembered the purpose for which these lands are suitable and can be most, profitably used. The consensu? of opinion is that the Hauraki Plains are pre-eminently suitable for dairying. Another feature is to take into account the extreme fertility, of the soil, and the comparatively small areas into which the land should be sub-divided. Accepting the conclusion that the land is firstclass dairy land, it has next to be considered the consequences of creating an intensive dairy settlement on soft, swampy lands. The outstanding consequence, in so far as it relates to the operations of the Crown, is the large amount of comparatively heavy traffic in the form of dairy produce which must be conveyed over the roads throughout the settlement. Bearing those things in mind, we have to next answer the question of whether the Minister has made these lands fit for settlement with only mud roads. The settlers are unanimously of the opinion that the duty is cast on the Crown of providing metalled roads. The Minister's officers take rhe view that it was never intended, nor part of the Department’s scheme, to metal roads, but, as against that, we have, the fact that the Department has since the early stages of the works metalled and maintained certain areas until at the present date Mr. Campbell states that there are 50 miles of roads in the area metalled by the Department. While the Department has from time to time weakly contended that it was not within their scheme to metal roads, it has continuously gone on metalling roads as the same became consolidated and fit to receive metal, and even at the present time the Minister of Lands, in his negotiations with the Hauraki Plains County Council, has reserved the right to metal such of the roads as he thinks fit. It becomes apparent that the present stand of the Department in declining to commit itself generally to metal roads throughout the area is dictated more by the present financial difficulties of the Reform Government than by a correct and liberal interpretation of the purposes for which the Hauraki Plains Act was put on the Statute Book. It seems to us that the phrase “rendering the lands fit for settlement” certainly casts on the Department the obligation to metal the roads which it constructs.