HORSES AGAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 22, 27 February 1942, Page 5

HORSES AGAIN

! VITAL TO DOMINION BUT MUST BE SHOD The importance of horses in enabling farmers to get around the country for their own work or the supervision of neighbour's farms in these times of petrol scarcity was stressed at last Executive* meeting of the Auckland Farmers' Union. Mr A. McConaughy referred to the difficulty, indeed, almost impossibility, of getting horse shoes and nails. Later in the meeting Mr R. W. Strugnell, of the Bay of Plenty, touched on the same matter. He said that in Tauranga* there had been two blacksmiths, but one had gone into camp and the other Avas expected to follow. Mr Hallyburton Johnstone pointed out that one day on the tar-sealed reads in his district would put a horse off the roads for months. It was suggested not only that iron and nails for horse shoes were urgently needed, but that from a national point of view it seemed to be a military necessity that a certain number of blacksmiths should he retained in the Dominion, so that all the horses available could be utilised. It Avas decided to make representatio'ns to the Ministers concerned, namely the Minister of Supply and the Minister <5f Manpower.