ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 37, 13 February 1931, Page 61

ORDER OUT OF CHAOS.

1 CIVILIAN WORK IN NAPIER. % - (To tlio Editor.) As one who was in Napier and Hasting* soon after the earthquake I am glad to se»* Commodore Blake's tribute to the spirit of the civilian population. There is an impression in Auckland that the Navy alone restored order from chaos in Napier. That is falg e It was not until Wednesday morning that the' two cruisers arrived, and the Veronica's complement was far too small to do more than a part of the work that was performed on Tuesday afternoon and during the night. It is true that after some of the desperately urgent work had been done no civilian organisation made a move to start demolition work in the town, and the naval men did make a start. But demolition work was not the only work that was being done at that time, norwas it even the most essential work. Some. of the odd, inconspicuous jobs done by small bodies in many parts of the town were fully as important at the time > as the demolition work that everybody could sec. And right from the time of the earthquake hundreds of Napier men and women worked incessantly, doing the thousand and one things that had to be done, and doinc them well. The Napier men were reinforced T very soon by hundreds of others from nearly every part of the North Island, and these too, did their bit. The naval men did every' thing they could, but had their number been' five thousand they could not by themselves have done all that was done in those first'few days. OBSERVER. 4i