The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1917. A TAIHAPE EFFICIENCY TRUST.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 29 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1917. A TAIHAPE EFFICIENCY TRUST.

(With which is incorporated The Taihape Post and Waimarino News).

It would have been more in accordance with the temper of the people of Taihape in connection with war mat,ers had they attended in larger numbers the meeting yesterday, called for the purpose of nominating a Board of Trustees, under the Efficiency Board, to act as trustees for men going to the front, who wish to return to their farms, properties or businesses. We do not think there was any intention of shirking responsibility, notwithstanding the patent fact that their absence could reasonably be so construed. As representing the whole of -he town only five men were present, and they were the same five one almost invariably sees at meetings lield £cr the common good, and for any Public purpose. As wv have been promised a multiplicity of aspirants for Public honours at the forthcoming municipal elections, it was expected tuat these aspirants and th fir supporters would have been present in mrco. it would have shown a sensitiveness to public duty which the man with a true public ;--firit cannot repress. Townspeople not seem to ealise the importance of the farcaching duties h’fi *oy Trustees

are likely to have conferred upon them by the Government. They are en-

couraging the hope that, wax' will end in 1917, and they are neglecting the fact that it may continue for another year or two. They seem to be surrounded with an atmosphere of certainty that life and business will go on just as it does at the present time, no matter how long the war lasts. Buoyed up by hope for the future, they are blinded to what the future is pregnant with, and they fail to realise that their own businesses may have to come within the scope of the machinery now being created by the State. The men nominated at yesterday’s meeting, if they are appointed by the Government, may within a year from now have to reorganise the whole of the business and domestic life of the territory over which they •have jurisdiction. Mr. A. L. Arrowsmith made that point very clear at the meeting. He said that there was a probability that the war would continue for some time beyond this year and it would then become essential to economise in everything, not omitting men, and he gave a case in point. He said there was no necessity for five solicitors in Taihape. The Efficiency Trust would have to amalgamate the work of various solicitors, and those w T ho were able to work would have to go to potato-digging or some other useful occupation. Men would have to be forthcoming, and those who could not fight would have to work to feed and clothe those who could. As with solicitors, so with drapers, butchers, bakers and all other trades; these businesses will have to be pooled and carried on by one or two men while surplus employees and owners will have to go to war work. It is either this or lose business and land to the Gex-mans, and be forced to carry the German yoke. Many of those who did not attend the meeting yesterday have failed to fully realise that these things are well within the range of possibility. It is regrettable, to say the least, that the attendance did not synchronise more closely with the importance of the matter to be considered. Farmers were present in fair number, in fact, they constituted the meeting, although, when the necessity for real efficiency work does commence, farmers and farms will not be affected anything like so much as businesses. The Efficiency Board in Wellington would decide that there was no need for a dozen drapers here, and the district Trust would have to compress drapery and clothing into one or two shops, so with all other trades and businesses. However, the three men nominated have had the | confidence of the communities in which they,live reposed in them for a long time. Mr. Arrowsmith needs no mention in that connection. Mr. O’CaJlaghan has well represented his district on the Rangitikei County Council, and in patriotic work he has displayed an energy and generosity that could well have been emulated by hundreds of other men. Mr. Wrightson has for some years been a member of the Taihape Borough Council, and has always proved himself an energetic,..outspoken, conscientious and hard-working Councillor. If Taihape residents and business men are dissatisfied, the fault lays at their own doors, for it,, was obviously their duty to be present on an occasion of such importance. One resolution carried yesterday seemed to be just beyond the., pale of the meeting’s right. While the meeting was well within its rights in refraining to nominate any man in the Second Division of the Reserve, it looks rather like overstepping the mark in adopting a resolution to exclude all such men from a

seat in the Trust. While we arc not saying that Second Division men should not be excluded, we are of opinion that if it was the intention of the Government and of the Efficiency Board that they should be ineligible, that view would have been conveyed to the conveners of the various meetings throughout the Dominion. In any ejase, the meeting displayed some forethought in raising that question.