The Press TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1942. The Zoning Muddle

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23701, 28 July 1942, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1942. The Zoning Muddle

The attempts which are being made to organise zoning schemes for the delivery of household commodities emphasise the urgent need for an overhaul of the machinery of government in New Zealand. Zoning is admittedly a difficult task, involving as it does minute investigations into the distributive side of many trades and interference with the highly intricate mechanisms by which demand and supply are adjusted to one another. Moreover, since every zoning scheme involves the creation of a monopoly, particular care is necessary to prevent consumers from being victimised. But when full allowance has been made for the difficulties, it has to be said that the story of the zoning schemes is a story of fumbling and blundering. The root cause of the trouble is that too many authorities are involved and that their powers and responsibilities have not been clearly defined. In Christchurch milk delivery has been zoned by a committee of the Christchurch City Council. The committee has, however, no authority over the price of milk and shares with the Health Department the responsibility for protecting consumers. Producers have been dissatisfied with the scheme because the Price Investigation Tribunal, in fixing milk prices for the Christchurch area, has shown an imperfect understanding of local conditions. Consumers are dissatisfied because safeguards against the sale of dirty milk, inadequate before the zoning scheme was introduced, are now even less adequate because the vendor is immune from . competition. The Christchurch bread delivery scheme seems to have been devised by the bakers themselves at the request of the Minister of Supply acting through the local Wheat and Flour Controller. Whether it is a legally-enforceable scheme no one seems to know. From the point of view of the consumers it is a bad scheme because the minimum weight regulations apply only to a small proportion of the types of loaves now being sold. The standard half-loaf is supposed to weigh 21b; but many householders are buying half-loaves which weigh as little as 11b 3oz. Though official assurances were given long ago that the Standards Institute was revising the regulations governing bread weights, nothing has yet been done to remedy the abuse. What authority or authorities will devise and control the other zoning schemes which have been promised has not been made clear. On June 2 last the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, with the concurrence of the Hon. R. Semple, announced that the Christchurch Milk Zoning Committee was to be reconstituted as a General Zoning Committee to “ control all forms of “zoning.” Nothing has been done to give effect to this proposal; but on June 21 Mr T. H. Langford, the No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority, was appointed “zoning officer for “ the South -Island.” At the same time the Government brought down the Delivery Emergency Regulations, 1942, which, according to Mr Semple, enabled “the Christchurch “ committee ” to “ start right away.” After more than a month, the Christchurch committee has not made a start and does not exist. It does not exist because, notwithstanding Mr Semple’s statement, the Emergency Delivery Regulations contain no provision for the appointment of general zoning committees. The regulations are, in fact, a confused jumble. They provide for the appointment of zoning officers and zoning committees without Refining their respective spheres of operation; they are, according to Mr Langford, defective in the powers they confer; and they give no clear picture of the administrative processes by which the Minister of Transport hopes to promote zoning. The only thing clear from the regulations is that the Minister has kept power in his own hands; zoning officers and zoning committees can be given as much or as little power as he pleases. School Shelters Information submitted to the Canterbury Education Board recently shbwed that a disturbingly high proportion of Christchurch schools in areas classified as vulnerable are still without air-raid shelters. Probably a much higher proportion of schools in areas not classified as vulnerable are without them. This means that at the great majority cf schools in the Christchurch area—which is not likely to be exceptional—not even minimal protection against the risks of bombing or shelling is provided. For that situation the Christchurch Metropolitan E.P.S. organisation is not responsible. The Education Department, for which the Canterbury Education Board is the area agent, has concentrated on the provision of fully timbered and covered shelters and has pressed two schemes to that end. Under one of them, the board’s officers and works staff have been building regulation shelters at schools in the so-called vulnerable areas. These need not be defined; but it may be said that “ vulner- “ able ” is a relative term, and does not imply that risk is negligible in areas not so classified. In fact, the scheme aims at the extension of the areas classified as vulnerable. The second scheme provides for the payment of scale subsidies on the construction of shelters built by volunteer labour to an approved design and under approved supervision. The rate of progress under* the first scheme is indicated by the report to the Education Board, whose staff is small. The second scheme is impeded by conditions which are in several respects difficult to fulfil. But if the department had urged boards and school committees to encourage parents and other helpers to dig shallow, open trenches at (or near) all schools, without delay, it can hardly be doubted that the response would have been prompt

and general. The work would have been rapidly done and a measure of protection assured to children at all schools. It would have been simple to see that the siting and lay-out of the trenches were such as to allow them to be completed, later, as regulation shelters; but there is reason to say that the advantage of the completed shelter over the shallow, open trench is, to say the least, not so great as is generally supposed. But the department has committed itself to a policy which, through its emphasis on the construction of regulation shelters, can only by slow degrees protect some schools and leaves, and will leave, many schools without. protection of any kind. This policy need not be abandoned. It should certainly be modified. The department should take every possible step to .encourage and hasten the digging of shallow trenches, by volunteer parties, at all schools where no shelter has yet been provided. If the department will not move, the boards and committees should move independently. They have waited for the department and followed it, so far. They should be ready to go further and go faster.