GREATER NEW PLYMOUTH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 153, 7 October 1910, Page 4

GREATER NEW PLYMOUTH.

Many people of Fitzroy seem to have made the mistake of believing that if that suburb is merged into the borough of New Plymouth they will lose some ol the valued privileges of suburbanites. The rumour haß been assiduously circulated, for instance, that the local flre brigade will lose its identity, that it wilt be impossible to keep a cow, that fowls will be regarded as a nuisance, and that pigs will have to go: The Fitzroy Fire Brigade will, should the district merge, still be the Fitzroy Fire Brigade, the Fire Board having decided to that effect, and it will of course be subject to the Board inspector's supervision. Neither, its distinctive appellation, its personnel or its utility will be altered 01 reduced. No borough council in its right senses would perform acts for which there are no precedents and which would inflict grievous disabilities on people in absorbed areas. It would be impolitic as well as unreasonable. In the case of the Caversham Fire Brigade, for instance, on the absorption of the lesser place by Dunedin, the Brigade retained its individuality. A very large number of assimilations such as the one contemplated here have taken place in New Zealand, and always to the advantage of the people of the newly included areas. Administration has been centralised, and privileges by no means curtailed. The rumour that the family cow willi have to go if Fitzroy becomes a part of New Plymouth, has no foundation. As for the other alleged disabilities they were deah with in a resolution passed by the Borough Council last night:—"That in the event of any suburban districts merging in the borough, the Council will not apply, in any such district, by-laws at present in force in New Plymouth relating to the erection of buildings, the removal of nightsoil and the keeping 01 pigs and fowls."