VALUER FAREWELLED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1938, Page 6

VALUER FAREWELLED

GATHERING IN MASTF.RTON MR E. P FOWLER’S SERVICES Representatives of the staffs of the Government Buildings in Masterton met yesterday to bid farewell to Mr E. P. Fowler, Government Valuer, who has left the service on retirement. Mr A. W. Scott, of the Lands and Survey Department, in expressing his fellow-officers’ regret that the associations with him in Masterton extending over a period of 30 years were at an end that day, wished Mr Fowler a happy and useful retirement in the many years left to him, and on behalf of those present asked him to accept a leather suit case as a token of the esteem in which he was held. Reference was also made to the goodwill with which Mr Fowler was held by officers of the various Departments in the building.

Mr Scott apologised for the absence of the Valuer General, Wellington, and on behalf of the Wellington officers of the Valuation Department, asked Mr Fowler to accept a watch suitably inscribed, and conveyed to him the best wishes of all concerned. Mr Fowler, who was toasted by those present, thanked all for the gifts presented to him, and the kind remarks that had been made by each speaker. He felt that the time had arrived when he was entitled to a rest untrammelled by Government routine. He had been working for over half a century, and during that time he had not had a real holiday, not a holiday in which he was not at the call of his Department. A couple of weeks was considered quite a spell. He was in a position now to take a long holiday. Looking back over the years he had spent in Masterton, Mr Fowler said he was still firmly of the opinion that the land would remain the backbone of the Dominion. He considered that the man owning his own farm would always be in a better position than any other. Enormous possibilities were available from the land and so far as this country was concerned, always would be. Values would have to come back eventually. Fortunately, he said, he had never entered into the boom conditions and his values did not require adjustment today.

Mr Fowler said he appreciated the goodwill that existed among all Government officers, and assured them .that he would be pleased to associate with them still while he was in Masterton,