AN UNSYMPATHETIC MINISTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24415, 28 September 1940, Page 10

AN UNSYMPATHETIC MINISTER

The Minister of Public Works has not shown himself very sympathetic to proposals that have been placed before him for the undertaking of two fresh irrigation schemes in Otago. One scheme is to obtain water from the outlet of the Hawea River for the irrigation of 14,000 acres comprising the whole of the Upper Clutha Valley. The other is for the flooding of between 9000 and 12,000 acres in the Styx Valley by the damming of the Taieri River at the Styx, with a view to the irrigation, by gravitation and pumping, of about 81,000 acres in the Maniototo district. The expenditure which the adoption of these schemes would entail may be problematical, but Mr Semple is not a Minister who has ever allowed himself to be embarrassed by considerations of cost. In the case of these two schemes, however, the advantages in the expansion of production that would be obtainable would, it is believed, -be so substantial that the outlay upon them would be completely justified. It is certainly unquestionable that the carrying capacity of the land that would be affected would be materially increased. One estimate is that it would be increased from five-fold to eight-fold. If a result such as this is to be realised from the adoption of the proposals that have been submitted to the Government, they should not be pigeon-

holed without serious attention being given to them and without their being closely surveyed by competent public officials. Mr Semple, however, has in the meantime administered a cold douche to the whole plan. Of the four grounds upon which he bases his present opposition to the extension of a programme of irrigation in Otago, the first and presumably, in his opinion, the most important is the least tenable. It is that if the schemes were undertaken in the most favourable circumstances it would take at least three years to develop them to full production. An immediate expansion of production is, of course, highly desirable. But an increase in production in three years’ time will be very acceptable, especially if the war should still be in progress—and there is no certainty that it will not be. And Mr Semple himself has in the past exhibited no indisposition to look forward to deferred results from the class of activity in which his department is engaged.