SERVICES FOR THE PUBLIC WELFARE AND CONVENIENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

SERVICES FOR THE PUBLIC WELFARE AND CONVENIENCE

WELLINGTON is a municipally ridden city, and Wellington people,are, at the bottom of their hearts, proud of it, protest how they may about crippling rates' and

ever-soaring expenditure by a profligate council. first of all city services,..watery--and its Cinderella sister, sanitation,, and the .drudging work of cleaning up, ar^e. municipally.controlled: ■without safe water and safeguarded health no city can smile for long. The history of all water supply systems runs along similar lines —threatened shortage,, new schemes, the overtaking of supplies considered ample for many years, and necessary further developments That has certainly been; Wellington skater supply history: Wainui, the nrst.ot the big-schemes, was overtaken Wainui and Karori .proved madequate. _1 he construction ot additional storage reservoirs in the Wainui Valley and at Karori met thaneed for only so. long and, Orongorongo was'added, to a chorus of cheers and assurances of a longed plentiful future' but Wellington aeanS SvirSte S H?& CSi ISdSI Hutt, S the Hutt County Council then took a long •look ahead and combined in the City and Suburban Water Supply Board to take over the watersheds of the Hutt,. Whakatikei,' and Akatarawa Rivers, from which streams ample water for a city very much greater than Wellington appears assured. The City and Suburban Water Supply Board has for the moment been disrupted by the withdrawal of Petone and Lower Hutt, but the essential safeguarding of the catchment areas has been achieved. In the meantime the city's water supplies are to be augmented from artesian "bores in the Hutt Valley. ■ In much the same way the local bodies of the whole Wellington district got together to underV take a roading programme, under the City and Suburban Highways Board, which considerably preceded the State programmes under the Main Highways Board. In both board programmes the. administrative work has been carried out by ■tHe City Council's engineering staff, a point ; ' : "

which is often overlooked when critics of the council complain of staff overhead.

TRAMS AND POWER,

~ Passenger .transport in Wellington is not a comp lete municipal monopoly,'for companies control the Kelburn cable tramway and the bus :Serv i ces f rom Kelburn to Karori and from the cit y to .Ngaio and Khandallah, but city trams an d buses carry, hundreds to the tens of the company-owned.cable trams and buses, which afe> moreo ver, subject to strict regulation as to services and vehicle types'. Within the city per & monopo ly i s complete, and not a Ngaio or a Hutt Valley bus can bring its city wor king passengers nearer their shops'or, offices or f actor i es \ than the tram terminus—in the j nteres t s of traffic safety, says the council; for the good of tramway revenue, say the bus and , trani passengers. .' ,: . , . : „, •. ~ , , , . , , Electric light and power, ranking almost with ; ' "fwer.rates d sol special proses elsewhere f h% e r %™ mole favourable all-round tariff than in Wellington, nor would those who are not <*»ltfi satisfied wish a return to other methods of control or sale of power. Wellington, incidentally, was the first city in the Southern Hemisphere to be supplied with power for public and private lighting, through the Gulcher Electric Light Company; of London, The Bill granting the company the rights was passed in 1892, and the supply was first available *n 1894 Even earlier than 'this, power bad been available for street lighting' from a water power plant—;fed from the city water supply from Wainui—but it was not a'success, or mains could not supply both city and turbines. The city took over the Gulcher Company's business in 1907 for £160,000. Two years ago the old loan was wiped off, and today the city possesses an undertaking worth approximately £1,500,000, and an undertaking vastly profitable to the city even at the low charges made for ..'•'•

-power. The city has not generated power for some years now, except-during short periods of emergency, but takes bulk supply at high voltage from the Government .hydro.-electric stations and retails it at working voltages, but the Evans Bay steam station is available within a matter of. a few minutes to .take up the load in the event of interruption of the Government supply, '. ■•■ •

„„„.^ a NV wtjfpj? THE FIRST ANYWHERE. In milk supply, Wellington led the world by introducing municipal control. There are many critics of the Municipal Milk Supply, but none wi H deny that from the City Council's determine tion, in the face of extreme difficulties, to succeed in r a city-wide system of treatment tod distribution has resulted a vast ' improvement in the quality of all milk supplied to Wellington citizens. Wellington1 has enjoyed „ kn^w T»n,,t,t; nn -,= *« ~ a ~ 1 l■ v a. = haPPy reputaUon as to, general health f 656 JS"^ 7 years-11 was n°l -always ; so, for Wellington was an unhealthy place efore sanitation was taken properly in hand-bu^ only within the last few years -.^Wellington nsen to a new^ distinction ■*■ healdi records, for bovine tuberculosis, a dreadful and permanently crippling form.of contracted from infected milk, has almost d*aPPeared from the Wellington records, Wellington people are altogether too modest about their milk supply system and- fail to recognise the standing which the department has in the eyes of overseas 'cities and authorities who are still troubled by the safe milk supply problem. The milk station in Tory Street has been built with a visitors', gallery and is open to -those who are interested, but how many Wellington people have thought of going along to see for themselves? It is too near home to be suffi-. ciently interesting, yet people who know "and people who want to know make special visits t0 Wellington, and to New Zealand, to go over tne station and discuss milk and administration, Information as to technique and plant is availal)le through, text books and catalogues, but the problems of administration and of a municipality entering upon a .field already covered, ill or well, are not elucidated in text books. Wellington has succeeded well on the technical side of milk treatment and has purchased the best plant and become skilled in its working, but the greater difficulty and success lay. in, overcoming the legal and administrative difficulties, those same difficulties which prevent other cities and authorities from following Wellington's lead, anxious though many are to do so. Let those who see no good in the Municipal Milk Supply system turn back to newspaper files prior to and during 1919, when the council stepped in, or to the report of the Committee of Inquiry which confirmed the council in its opinion that something must be done at once to improve upon the position which then existed, and they will realise the then thoroughly unsatis•factory state of milk supply in Wellington,- in quantity, and worse, in quality, even in that minimum quality essential for public health. THE LIBRARY SYSTEM. ■■ Wellington can claim, top, to have been well

;to the front in public library facilities, for this city gave the Dominion a lead in an important branch of library work, the school library and

juvenile and school. reader branches. If it is good that people should read for amusement or enlightenment, then it is doubly, good ; that children should be brought into touch with library facilities, and that is the whole aim.v of the school -library and juvenile.' departments, which cater for the lighter side of reading, and of the useful weekly talks to older.pupils in the reference rooms of the Central Library. There they are shown how to find books and how to make best use of them. Not all pupils will profit from the advice and reading given, but many will. ...-'■ '■'".."•■ ' , ,- ".

' Notwithstanding the present inadequate Central Library building, erected over 40 years ago,' making overdue additions and extensions impossible, and even necessitating. the storing of books in secondary demand (but by.no means dead stock) elsewhere, the book issues and daily use of reference and reading rooms has shown a remarkable yearly advance. There are shop and club libraries in operation in the city, but none flourishes as do the municipal, libraries, city and suburban. , '

The establishment of branch libraries in the outer districts—there ~ are now branches at Brooklyn, Karori, Miramar, Newtown, Ngaio, Wadestown, and very soon at Lyall. Bay and probably also Island Bay—has made possible a much wider use of library facilities, but still the most urgent need is a new. Central Library. The council has made up its mind that a new library must be built, and the Chief Librarian, Mr. J. Norrie, is only now returning from an extensive tour of the United States and Great Britain to inquire into library development Though there may be financial difficulties in the way of an immediate commencement of the work, finance is in fact assured, as a result of the splendid generosity of the late Hon. C. H. Izard, who left a large estate to the city, subject to certain conditions, under terms which will enable the council to apply at least ~h part to the erection and equipping of a modern central library.

In ambulance work, too, Wellington has taken and held a Dominion lead, thanks to the enthusiasm of Mr. C. J. B. Norwood, without whose interest arid substantial financial assistance the Wellington Free Ambulance would not have come into being five years ago. The record of the Wellington Free Ambulance is an astonishing one. In seven years 50,000 patients were handled.

Those are remarkable figures, but the figure which properly tells of the character of the service rendered, freely and willingly to those who call the ambulance and prefer not to or cannot afford to pay, is the total of complaints fr.om dissatisfied patients to the staff and the board. One complaint arising from a misunderstanding in seven years in 50,000 cases. That is.a good record. -

George Bernard Shaw, a man with whom many disagree, but to whom everyone listens, said of New Zealand after his visit last year that this Dominion, after Russia, is the most communistic (meaning socialistic) country in the world, but New Zealanders did not realise it. Bernard Shaw talks most seriously when:he is joking and jokes most effectively when he is serious—a very annoying man. •

He was too general when he said that New Zealand was a communistic country, but what he might well have said, and probably meant,: was that Wellington in particular had a socialistic-, outlook upon essential services, water and health, transport and power, and the common well-being of citizen^ who, whatever their work and position, have a, common aim,, to, advance their city as themselves.