ONE MILLION ART UNION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 49, 26 August 1926, Page 8

ONE MILLION ART UNION

TURNED DOWN BY GOVERNMENT

INCONSISTENCY ALLEGED.

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Pott")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

The Government has declined to en« tertain the proposal of the Waitemata Bridge Committee for legislative authority for the inauguration of £1,000,000 lottery for the purpose of constructing a bridge across the harbour. The Mayor of Birkenhead (Mr. E. G. Skeates), chairman of the committee, said that the Government was inconsistent regarding these matters. Per* mits had been given for a,number of smaller art unions, for which the public as a whole could see nothing that they could freely use. Parliament had also -passed the Gaming Bill, which gave greater opportunities than ever to racing clubs, yet Cabinet saw fit to "turn down" a Bill giving, the community an opportunity to raise fund* in an open and above board, method for a great community work of unlimited advantage to the whole population of the Auckland Province and of great use to the people of New Zealand generally, if only from a military viewpoint. Such a bridge would have brought large residential areas of sunny, open country to within a few minutes motor reach of the city, thereby making for healthy and cheaper houses.

The country could, with profit and without loss of dignity, carry on such schemes for legitimate and useful public wotlcs, and thereby catch a great volume of ready money that went out of New Zealand into Tattersall'i sweeps.