CENTENNIAL PLANS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 July 1938, Page 6

CENTENNIAL PLANS.

r £HERE appears to be room for a more enlightening lead than the Government has yet given to provincial local bodies in the matter of plans for the celebration of the national centennial and the establishment of suitable local memorials. At the meeting of the Martinborough Borough Council on Monday evening, a certain vagueness was apparent as to what is intended or proposed. Some rather novel suggestions were advanced, notably by a member of the council who asked whether they could interest the boroughs of Featherston, Greytown, Carterton and Masterton in swimming baths for Martinborough, but if anything practical is to be accomplished, the Government must say what it is prepared to do and what it expects the local bodies to do. There has been some mention of playing parks and other suitable memorials, but the question that evidently interests the members of the Martinborough Borough Council, and no doubt will interest other local bodies°r elates to the matter of responsibility for the cost of these amenities. Is the Government suggesting that local bodies should rely entirely on their own resources in providing centennial parks or other memorials, or is it proposing to offer a scale of subsidies? The position in this respect and perhaps in some others for instance as to possible conditions of district co-operation—needs defining before there can be any practical consideration of what should be done or left undone.