READERS CONSIDER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 3, 2 October 1950, Page 4

READERS CONSIDER

ELECTRICITY RESTRICTIONS Sir, —Restrictions of any sort are irksome to most people and the present power situation is no exception. However, for the commbn good, most people have accepted whatever quota has been bestowed upon them by a benign power controller and have endeavoured to keep within it. It seems strange, however, that right in the middle of all these restrictions, the Stewart Street Gospel Hall, already sporting four outside lights should be allowed * to instal two more for no greater purpose than to illuminate a concrete wall. I feel sure that a great number of shoppers would appreciate an extra allocation for shop windows but am somewhat doubtful as to their reception should they be so bold as to make a request. Surely the Gospel Hall could find other ways of spreading the light. Yours etc., '"‘‘WOT, NO QUOTA”

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Sir, —Citizens will be interested to note that the Mayor, the DeputyMayor and several prominent councillors have announced that they will not again stand. This means either that we will have a nearly new Council or else we are to have a repetition of the old tactics. It is said that there is precedent for a set-up in which the Mayor and a number of Councillors announce their retirement. Later the retiring Councillors wait on the Mayor and press him to reconsider his position and finally he agrees to stand again, provided that the others do so also. This they agree to do and the old gang heaves a sigh of satisfaction and settles down to another term of snail-like progress. Yours etc., UNORIGINAL.

"Whakatane, September 28. This letter is published from fairness to our correspondent though we dislike the implication contained in it. The present mayor is emphatic that he will not be standing again. Ed.

/ CONGRATULATIONS Sir, —Congratulations upon your enterprise in introducing a new feature “Does Whakatane Need” in your paper. As you say in your first instalment, the list is a long one. This leads up to the fact that next year we will have a nearly new Council which will have to start from a long way behind scratch. It won’t be long before our people will come to realise that primitive sanitary conditions are a menace to the health of the community. A modern home with efficient drainage is not immune from the dangers ;of bugs which find a breeding place in the little house over the garden fence. It is quite possible that the public will rouse itself before an epidemic rather than after one, and when the time arrives that a drainage scheme, a pure water supply and other amenities are demanded it must not be held against any new body of Councillors that they are entirely responsible for any sensational rise tin rates which may occur as a result of a policy of progress. Yours etc., LOOK AHEAD. Whakatane, September 28.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE?

Sir, —While Robinson Crusoe was steering his raft to the shore, he saw a big swell pitching into a little cove, Tauranga’s champion has gone to London. Our Big Bill is left to do his best for our little cove. Instead of dividing their time between Tauranga and Whakatane, the men with power to make the final decision re the harbour question, will sit at Rotorua, peruse documentary evidence the ratepayers will never see; personal investgaition on the spot has been ignored. Would the judges of local shows be allowed to do likewise? Maybe the committeemen are televisionaries and can see the almighty dollars pouring in, which will mean empty British ships coming to a port made with American machinery and equipped with American manufactures at a price 35 per cent higher than British goods. "What a halleluah chorus for Wall Street. Australia’s Prime Minister returned from U.S.A. with a big swag’’ labelled “usury” and had a long confidential talk with our Government’s head so why not make the pound go farther away from those who need it and nearer those who don’t. Yours etc., H. SERGANT.