OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 August 1939, Page 2

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

GRADING OF RUGBY PLAYERS — (To the Editor.) .Sir. —Would you kindly allow me a little space in the columns of your paper re the above. At the last Wairarapa Rugby Union meeting, two or three College boys were regraded from thirds back to fourths. These boys are quite up to third grade standard, and have been playing for the two teams, thirds and fourths. They have already played three or more games for the ( thirds, hence the regrading. As the College has only a limited number of boys to pick from several hundreds I believe they have to keep these boys playing for two teams. If they are to play a strong fourth team slip them into the fourths, and they are thirds the following Saturday. When they have played three games as thirds, get them regraded and start over again. Anything to win.—l am, etc.. FAIR PLAY. Carterton, August 10. Mr G. G. Hancox, Principal of Wairarapa College, to whom the above letter was referred, said he had no comment to make on anonymous correspondence. CENTENNIAL MEMORIALS (To the Editor.) Sir,—lf pride in the development of a district can be measured in terms of the monetary value of a centennial memorial, then the “powers that be” in the Masterton Borough and County Councils have little enotfgh of it. The report in the “Times-Age” of the various centennial memorials projected for the Wairarapa makes sorry reading as 1 far as those two bodies are concerned.

According to your report, Akitio suggests the establishment of a Centennial Park costing £220; Pahiatua proposes an avenue of trees at a cost of £145; Eketahuna will spend £2OO on a children’s playground: Greytown plans a rest room at a cost of £400; Martinborough will build a £lOOO swimming bath; Carterton proposes, if allowed, to spend £4OO on its present baths. And Masterton—the little city of these plains, largest town of all —combines borough and county iri a tree-planting scheme costing £75.

The whole idea is so absurd that I, for one, wonder how on earth our local body councillors have the nerve to suggest it let alone commence its actual establishment.

Why, Sir, should our community officials be so cheeseparing? Is it but another expression of that smug complacency so common to municipal effort in Masterton? For objects not nearly so worthy, voluntary organisations in this town can raise hundreds of pounds and secure the active assistance of local dignitaries in their efforts. Yet, when it comes to commemorating a century of our country’s existence, these same leaders advance a ridiculously inadequate tree-planting scheme as temporary in its value as a memorial as it is absurd in its conception.

I would urge your readers, Sir, to prevail upon your generosity to allow space for further expressions of antipathy to this miserly and inadequate plan of recording 100 years of our nation’s development. —Yours, etc.,

ARBOR DAY. Masterton. August 10.