E.P.S. TRAINING OFFICERS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23915, 6 April 1943, Page 3

E.P.S. TRAINING OFFICERS

CRITICISM BY MAYOR “ NOT GOING TO RUN WHOLE SHOW” A statement that four members of the Christchurch E.P.S. who attended the Civil Defence School at Wellington now had the idea that they could “run the show themselves” was made by the Mayor (Mr E. H. Andrews) at a meeting of the City Council last evening. The Mayor said it was being made perfectly plain to these men that their duties were only those of training officers. The Mayor made his comment on the training officers when Cr. G. Manning suggested that the training unit, of which these officers were the nucleus, could act as an organising unit. Cr. Manning quoted from an article in a Christchurch newspaper to support his suggestion.

There was a good deal of misapprehension about the training officers, and there was a good deal of misapprehension in the training officers’ own minds, said the Mayor. They were "getting ideas” and thinking they were “bosses of the whole show.” The Mayor said the article which had appeared in a Christchurch newspaper should not have been given to a reporter, and he thought he knew who had given it. Some of the statements were incorrect, and the man he had in mind had made statements to him which were entirely wrong. The .man he referred to had waited on him, not to ask permission to hold a unit trial, but to say that one would be held and to ask for petrol. The Mayor said he should have been asked for his sanction.

Mr Andrews said these four men were training officers and were not in control of wardens and unit controllers and were not organisers. They were only training officers and in an emergency would play no leading part, though the benefits of the training they had given personnel would be felt then. These men had been sent to Wellington solely for the purposes of receiving training and of imparting it. . .. "They are not going to run the whole show, and the sooner they get that into their heads the better it will be for all concerned,” said the Mayor. The Mayor said one of the outstanding wardens of the service had said he did not think he could continue in the job because it seemed to have been taken out of his hands. The controller of the law and order unit (Mr T. Shanahan), who had done fine work, had also commented on the attitude of the training officers.