FLOOD CONTROL SCHEME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3934, 23 April 1929, Page 3

FLOOD CONTROL SCHEME.

FURTHER CRITICISM. DEPUTATION AND PETITION 'TO GOVERNMENT. There were 31 settlers present at the adjourned meeting of the Manawatu Ratepayers’ Association on Saturday, called to consider the Manaiwatu-Oroua River Board’s scheme. Mr A. Guy was in the chair. ' The chairman, in opening the (meeting, said that every ratepayer had a right to express his opinions on the matter. Personally, he thought a petition should be circulated for the signatures of those opposed to the scheme, which a deputation could later present to the Government. Mr Guy pointed out that the association could not attack the scheme in detail, as the Board had all the figures. Their attack! could only be a general one. However, he was pleased to see the Kairanga County Council and Mari awatu River Board opposed to the scheme. Local 'bodies had no right to send delegates to the government •in support of the Board’s scheme. Their duty was to look after drains and so forth. The people running the scheme were both clever and smart. The Mgkerua Drainage Board had the controlling vote, he 'considered, in the scheme. The Makerua people had put up good banks and to the credit of the settlers on the other side of the river, not one voice had been raised in protest. If the Maikerua banks ■were right and safe, there were very few other people interested, except some at the bottoim end. The chairman urged that the petition be gone on with. The River Board had already spent £12,000 of the ratepayers’ money, with nothing to shoAV for it. That sum could easily have been spent on river cuts aud banking. Instead, they had done nothing.

Mr J. Chrystall, chairman of the Moutoa Drainage Board, considered the River Board’s scheme a greater menace than floods. It was going to talke all the farmers’ equity from their lands. That had happened in the Whakatane. If the Rver Board took the scheme up with the limited icsoui'ces at its disposal, he foresaw bankruptcy staring the farmers in the face. Many important economic facts had been overlooked by the River Board in Its estimate of the scheme. The speaker quoted the railway deviation and Mangahao hydro-elec-tric works as examples of works which had cost far above what had been estimated. The same thing would happen, he feared, if the River Board’s scheme was gone onwith. In addition, he thought the farmers were already rated heavily enough. Mr Chrystall declared that the area in the Board’s district was fax’ too limited to go ahead with such a big scheme. There would be no finality to it; it would be like the Palmerston North deviation —started and stopped halfway through. The speaker supported the idea of a deputation to the Government, but thought that the opinion of the ratepayers should be secured first. He was prepared to help financially with the petition, which would carry greht weight with the Government. He considered the losses by floods were not sufficiently serious to warrant the River Board’s scheme. A meeting of Moutoa ratepayers had been held to consider the question, and he did not know six Moutoa people in favour’ of the scheme. Mr D. Buchanan said he recalled the Board’s engineer stating before the Commission that there was no other scheme but the comprehensive one, and now he urged a modified one. The question was, if the modified sehedne was started, would the Board end up with the comprehensive one? The Chairman moved that a petition foe circulated. Mr D. Buchanan seconded, and the motion was carried, Messrs Chrystall, M. Voss and the chairman undertaking to draw it up. An appeal for funds amongst those present resulted in £l6 10s being collected to pay a canvasser. Mr D. Buchanan feared that the Board’s stop-banks would soon be full of rabbit burrows, through which the water would soon find a way, causing slips until no bank existed. Mr Chrystall moved that a deputation take the petition to the Government, and this was agreed to. Mr Chrystall also moved that the meeting protest against the suggestion to pay the Maikerua Drainage Board £36,000 for protective •works along the river, unless similar protective works were compensated for. He thought it unfair that. Makerua should be so favoured. In any case, the Board’s engineer had estimated the Makerua banks as worth only £IB,OOO to the River Board’s scheme. If that was so. why should the Board pay twice as much as the banks were worth? If the scheme avas to go on, it should at least be carried out on a just basis. Mi’ M. Voss seconded the motion, which was carried. Messrs J. Chrystall, A. Guy, M. Richardson, M. Voss, D. Rowlands and J. Callesou signified their willingness to form the deputation to the Government. Subsequent to the meeting the following petition was drawn up; “To the Premier and Ministers of the Government of New Zealand. — The petition of the undersigned of the Manawatu- Oroua River district humbly sheweth “(1) Your petitioners are all ratepayers in'the Manawatu-Oroua River District. “(2) That the said River Board contemplates an expenditure of a-

bout £360,000 on flood protection works on tire Manawatu River. “(3) Your petitioners are opposed to such modified scheme, and a grant in aid from the Government, on the following grounds: —(a) The scheme is incomplete, making no provision for the large overhead bridges over two main highways and other necessary works; (b) That petitioners fear the probability of financial disaster to a. district with limited resources owing to finished costs vastly exceeding estimates.”