AMAZING STORY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5132, 30 May 1927, Page 1

AMAZING STORY.

HOTEL GUESTS EVICTED. TREATMENT AT CANBERRA. That she was not class enough for the officials, and wi.th her husband was thrown out of the Hotel Canberra by the Commission, is tne amazing story told by Mrs Helen Barton, who helped to make, Canbei ra (says a Sydney paper).

She went to Canberra in August, 1925, and ran the first motor bus service and introduced the first cars for hire. This was no small service in a. community where there were no trams and the nearest shop was at Queanbeyan, seven miles, away. However, the Federal Commission had no time for her, nor recognition for her past services.

“Evidently I was not good enough to associate with the official people and others coining to Canberra,” says Mrs Barton.

The story, as told to a Daily Telegraph News Pictorial representative, was corroborated by her husband. When she went to the territory she took up residence at the Hotel Canberra. At the end of January the guests were told that tariff would be raised from £5 to £7 a week. They naturally left, except Mrs Barton and her husband.

“You see, I had nowhere else to house my cars. A representative of the Commission told me in so many words that I should go to the Hotel Ainslie, as that would suit me better.”

Mrs Barton is a lively, good-tem-pered woman, but here she became indignant.

“What about the eviction, Mrs Barton was asked.

“ That happened, 1 think, in the last week in March. While I was at my breakfast’ they started pulling my room about. All this time, you know, my husband and I were paying them £6l a month. They took my bed away while I was at breakfast. “They left my room as if a bomb had hit it; fruit and things like that were scattered all over the place. I

complained that they should have left my bed alone, but was told : ‘lt is not your bed, it belongs to the Commission.’ So I had to go.”

Mrs Barton’s experience is possibly unique, but the facts are not in dispute. At present the enterprising lady is residing at Ainslie House, which is two miles farther from the centre of the city, and her cars are garaged in different quarters.

She is an expert motorist, and the Commission has been utilising her services as a driver for the past week or so.

Both she and her husband feel that they have been ousted to make an official holiday.

MR. BUTTERS EXPLAINS.

The Chief Commissioner is not a little annoyed at an article criticising arrangements whereby it was stated that permanent residents at hostels were to be evicted to make way for official guests.

“The statements,” said Mr Butters, are incorrect. The procedure, according to the- Daily Telegraph News Pictorial’s leading article, was that tin Commission evicted tenants from hostels, whereas, on the contrary, no Commission officer has been evicted in that way. Some persons, not officers of the Commission, who were temporarily engaged at Eastlake, were required to vacate their rooms, but they had notice of the impending event for a considerable time ahead.”

The article in the Daily Telegraph News Pictorial referred to a by-law, published in a special Commonwealth Gazette. It provided that persons occupying rooms in premises attached to a hotel in the Federal territory who failed to comply with a notice to vacate within the time specified in ■the notice should be deemed to be guilty of an offence carrying a penalty of £2O. Where a person refused to comply with such notice he might be removed by an officer of police-, and his effects also removed.