The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons. Motto: Public service. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1920. APATHETIC PUKEKOHE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 591, 10 December 1920, Page 2

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons. Motto: Public service. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1920. APATHETIC PUKEKOHE.

Eight hundred voters have the* names on the roll of the Pukekohe Bbrough, but only eighty odd voted on the loan proposal on Wednesday, , wherebv the Council. sought power to raise a loan of £4IOO for the pur- . chase of the property known as » Roose's Bush, approximately twentythree acres, and to pay for making and metalling of roads leading thereto. Although we are of the opinion that the failure to carry the proposal is a great misfortune for the Borough, we do not condemn the action of the forty-three persons who voted against the project: they had good reasons for their attitude just as did the forty who voted in favour, and each voter had an equal right to .ive effect to his or her opinion. But I of the seven hundred or more ratepavers who did not take the trouble to register their votes either way we have nothing but absolute and downright condemnation. It is a scaling indictment against what we are pleased to call "democracy" when a privilege for which our forefathers fought and died, generation after generation, is not now thought worthy of being exercised, and although the people of Pukekohe are not singular in respect to the lack of appreciation of their hard-won rights as citizens of a free country, we cannot recall to mind any other instance in which such general apathy on a pub-1 lie matter of much local importance has been so apparent. Within ten or twenty years, when the Borough area of Pukekohe will have been built upon fairly densely, such a property as Roose's Bush would be a great boon to all of the citizens, from childhood to old age, and yet only forty persons out of eight hundred have the foresight, imagination, and care for the futnre to see the value of this 'magnificent surviving piece of representative native bush, together with the large clearing suitable for recreational purposes. The paucity "of votes, either for or against, is a most disheartening sign. It is enough to make, those who take an active interest in the welfare of the, Borough. knd have a regard for the interests

if the next generation, come to the conclusion that, even when able to ".ccomplish good work in the face of opposition and apathy, they are merely building temples for flies to buzz in.