STATE DEFIANCE OF BY=LAWS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 February 1939, Page 6

STATE DEFIANCE OF BY=LAWS.

MOST people no doubt, will agree with the chairman of the Wellington Fire Board (Mr S. S. Dean) that:—

Where a brick area was created, no Government or local authority should be permitted to use other than fire-resisting materials.

The present Government did not originate the thoroughly bad and indefensible custom of ignoring local bylaws in the matter of the erection of temporary buildings and in other particulars, but it has continued the custom. It did so with disastrous effect in the case of the temporary building in Aitken Street, Wellington, which was destroyed by tire along with a number of others in the early hours of Thursday morning.

But for good work by the Wellington Fire Brigade and a fall of rain, the disaster might have attained far greater dimensions. It was stated by the chairman of the Fire Board that had il not been for the-rain, the whole of Thorndon might have been wiped out. As it was, a serious destruction of private property occurred and no doubt when all insurance claims have been settled, a considerable number of people will find themselves more or less heavily penalised, primarily because the Government chose to erect a building, in an inner city area, of materials which no private individual or firm would have been permitted to use.

That a bad precedent has been established for this sort of thing is no defence whatever. Bylaws, like other laws, should be enforced without fear or favour and without exception. It may be hoped that the Aitken Street disaster will impart a new impetus to the demand that the Government should nowhere lie permitted to lower the standards of city building and development and should be required to observe in every particular bylaws that are framed in the public interest and for the general good.