FLIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 55, 10 March 1944, Page 4

FLIES

WHEN the Chamber of Commerce first agitated for the institution of a rubbish collection in Whakatane, it little thought, that a year from that date the Borough Council would be still sitting' comfortably on the idea that it had dealt with the proposal, by once more delegating it to the limbo, of other matters to be kept 'steadily in mind.' The permanancy of things in this becomes sickening in the light of such vital matters as the public health of the community, and the policy of procrastination so easily adopted by our city fathers, only leads all right-minded citizens to suppose that they are simply not interested. The regulation excuses, why Whakatane should still remain one of the three towns in the whole of the Auckland province which have yet to inaugurate the most rudimentary of hygienic precautions, are as we have heard so often, the lack of finance, the lack of a suitable vehicle, and the lack of lab--our. In the first place, the scheme would standi on its own feet by special rate, in the second we would like to ask why the Council insists upon the impossible at this junc-' ture —the purchase of a new vehicle, and thirdly, there is, the old saying 'where there's a will there's a way." Those who attended the E.P.S. lecture on Thursday evening will! understand something of the potential threat of disease from the fly menace and yet for years now we have been content to go on with festering heaps of filth in every backyard in the Borough, with fish, meat and other drainage' flowing over the sides of the rear Strand into the river, with rubbish of all descriptions accumulating not a dozen paces from food on display in shop windows, dinners and meals served to customers. And nobody cares, or apparent ! ly thinks its dangerous enough to move heaven and earth in order to bring about an ordinary decent and hygienic state of affairs. Flies breeding by the million in hundreds of refuse and offal heaps in and about Whakatane are directly responsible for summer sickness which we accept so readily as seasonable, for diarrhoea that distressing and unmentionable complaint and other diseases, which nicety of expression forbids us to mention. All these we are prepared to risk and allow our children to risk, for the sake of a few miserable hundred pounds per annum. It can't be done, say our city fathers. If it can be done in dozexis of other Boroughs many smaller than Whakatane, —why % not ? If we were prepared to sit down for ever, and take this spineless 'No' for an answer we would be failing in our duty not merely to ourselves but to the youngsters who have no say in these matters and who look to us to demand and secure for them, protection.