DRILL HALLS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1840, 28 August 1913, Page 8

DRILL HALLS.

.SOME .PROTESTS RECORDED,

The present' position of drill halls, 'a number of which, in different parts of the Dominion, havo been taken over by the. inception ox tlie •Territorial system, was discussed at some length m the' House of Representaties , yesterday..-: -The question'i.-wasi raised by Mr. J.- .Colvin,i..member for Buller, who asked the Minister for Defence to amend theDefenco Act so that' halls erected originally without Government assistance should bo paid' for when taken,..otfir by' the Defence Department. '* " : ■ - The' Minister replied, as .he .has done, previously, that'..the aim,had been,to' plagg„thoi halls,on,a. proper footing on. the volunteer force' becoming., merged' into the Territorial force. Liabilities existing upon. the* halls would bo paid'off arid where'it was desired to use the halls . for ,other, than military purposes,, tho Government would consent to a local management committee being sot up to control the use of the hall'at times when-it-was-not required by the Defence authorities.

A number of members expressed dissatisfaction at this reply. They admitted that the Defence Act authorised the Government to take over the halls, hut contended that a number of communities, besides Donniskm, had suffered hardship in being hampered in the use of halls which in the first place had been crectod solely as a result of local efforts.

Mr. D. Buiek said that the question of tlioso haUs was agitating nearly every small community in Now Zealand. What .was . objected to was not so milch that the halls wore being taken over by the Department; n3 the arbitrary and off31aiul way in which it was being done. Halls originally intended largely as pleasure-rooms by volunteer officers and men wero :being converted into offices by the Defdnce authorities, their former purpose being altogether, lost sight of. ' '