CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 35, 11 February 1943, Page 4

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

THE MOSQUITO PEST To the Editor. Some years ago the Government paid a man a high salary and expenses to travel throughout New Zealand investigating the idiosyncrasies of the insect we call the mosquito. The United States of America spent millions of dollars paying experts to deal with this little deathdealing dive-bomber. Your paper even gave a list of "don'ts" in regard to keeping down the multiplication of these pests. The "don'ts" include:—Never leave water about in empty tins; old puddles of stagnant water should be covered with kerosene; don't leave them exposed to the mosquito. Having come in contact with mosquitoes in Egypt and Palestine during the last war, I want to warn the inhabitants of this country that if ever the malaria mosquito gets into New Zealand it will be here to stay. And will it multiply? Just think of the last few weeks of heat and humidity. Right here in Auckland, on both sides of Symonds Street, are people who fill up the mosquito-breeding containers every Sunday. I refer to people who put jam jars on the graves in the cemeteries. Little do these people realise that in paying respect to people who died in 1889 they are causing annoyance, and maybe illness, to little new-born babes of 1943. If a malaria mosquito ever comes here on an air liner, or in a case of fruit, it will cause more trouble than Hitler and-the Japs put together. We all realise that the City Council is short of staff owing to the war; nevertheless, something should be done by the authorities to stamp out the mosquito menace.' NORMAN McCALLUM.