FAIR SHARE TO ALL

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 201, 23 May 1944, Page 6

FAIR SHARE TO ALL

Cr. Appleton On Works’ Allocations OTHER SPEAKERS’ POINTS Cr 'Will Appleton, Citizens’ candidate for the Wellington mayoralty, told Brooklyn and Vogellown-Mornington electors last night that in eight years as works committee chairman, lie had stood firmlv bv the principle of a fair allocation to each district, irrespective of the rates derived therefrom. Preference, it any. was to districts that wanted development. and in the works loan to be put before ratepayers next Saturday. i_o.ooo was allocated for work in or around these three areas. He made a special appeal for support for Cr. F. W. Furkert, council and hospital hoard candidate. Cr. Furkert, he said, was a former Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, whose valuable service had been available free to the council and hospital board. He had been engaged on State business during the war, and at present was absent from AN ellington tor that reason. 'This prevented Cr. Furkert from taking part in the latter fortnight of the campaign and he asked. electors to remember his services to the city and the country.

Holiday homes, which were successful in New South Wales, were advocated b.v Mrs. Knox Gilmer, for the hospital board. In these homes women could spell from the daily round and incipient illness and collapse could be warded off in a congenial atmosphere, free front care. There were now too many cases of strained nerves and complete breakdowns. #

Cr. Bryan Todd told Brooklyn electors that a Citizens’ council had . performances. not promises, on the health protection side. IV hen restaurants became congested the council had rigid inspections made, enforcing clean conditions in kitehens and the keeping of all perishable foodstuffs in vermin-proof containers. That was real work, not a sketch in a pamphlet. * *

, 'Wellington had been carefully ami well managed, eaid Cr. J. D. Sievwright, at Brooklyn. Its debt was controlled ana more than balanced by assets. Its taxation in fates was not unbearable. Citizens’ administration, moreover, had financially armed the city to meet the great needs of the immediate and the post-war future. « >.i ♦

Cr. It. L. Macalister, on the slum question. reminded electors of a fail council deputation to the then acting-Prime Minister, Mr. Nash, last December. As its spokesman he asked for half the labour and half the materials available to be allocated for private building, so that those who could help themselves might do so. This was refused. He said that slum clearance was idle talk without alternative accommodation and asked for financial assistance on the same terms "as that given by the Reserve Bank for State housing, that the council might erect multiple flats in Adelaide Road. This was refused. Finally he asked for a copy of the Government’s Slum Clearance Bill. The council had recently been advised that this was not yet available. o *

Hospital board administration needed not only heart but head, said Mr. H. i. Toogood at Hataitai North. The previous Labour-controlled board had its heart in the job but no head, or experience, to go with it. In August, 1938, it decided to build a nurses’ home, but in August, 1940, it was still at the resolution and counter-resolution stage. It borrowed more than half a million on the strength of “that hole in the ground, and then set about deciding what to do. That cost the people £56,000 in interest and £27,000 in architects’ fees, all gone for nothing. The present board took office with 610 beds, with crowding even the chapel, raising the number to 1140, and there were 2000 persons awaiting admission. Patients were in that terrible old school at Newtown and in an old residence. The present board, within a few months, would have finished doubling th (it accommodation —by 620 beds on top. of the 610.

Cr. R. A. Wright, at Island Bay, said enrolment was now compulsory for the first time in municiual history in New Zealand. It enforced enrolment which could at any time have been secured voluntarily. But voting was not compulsory. Australia had compulsory Parliamentary voting, but no action was taken where the elector’s excuse for noncompliance was reasonable, or sufficiently plausible. * * "

Mr. C. Meacheu, hospital board candidate, said a public hospital should be conducted to enable'citizens to secure early diagnosis and to cater for treatment of the sick. The application of modern preventive medicine was simply awaiting further and more adequate distribution of district nurses as relay stations to carry the power from the control stations of science —the hospitals.

TONIGHT’S MEETINGS

Citizens’ candidates will hold' meetings tonight nt the Thorndon Methodist Hall, the Lyall Bay Public School, and the Wadestown Church of England Hall. The speakers are advertised. All meetings will commence at 8 p.m. Labour candidates for the Wellington citv local bodies will address the following meeting in Wellington at 8 o clock tonight : Tutanekai: Hall, Adelaide Road, Berhampore, and. St. Anne’s Church Hall, Northland. 4 _ ■ Citizens’ candidates in the Upper Hutt elections will address a meeting in Bt. John’s Schoolroom at S o’clock tonight.