E.P.S. STOCKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 6

E.P.S. STOCKS

PARTIAL DISPOSAL

Stock has been taken of all E.P.S. material held in Wellington. What is not further required is to be disposed of and other material is to be distributed where it can be safely kept for use if the need arises. The organisation is still in existence, and the necessary safeguarding and maintenance of equipment is being carried on. Telephone installations, owing to maintenance problems in damp weather, are being removed. While the importance of the E.P.S. as a war organisation is not now so great, .it is still available in the case of a national emergency, and will be maintained in some form where it may prove valuable in the case of an epidemic. Existing first-aid posts are to be maintained, and drugs : kept there, and replaced if they deteriorate. It has been suggested that after the war the E.P.S. should, be reorganised and retained, not as a large body, but with perhaps half a dozen foremen in each district, having power, in the event of an .emergency, to call out 500 men in that district. There will be no need for a highly-organised body, but there will always be possibilities of such a body becoming extremely useful at short notice, if it has the necessary connections, and can function in a simple commonsense way when wanted. Shortages in equipment stocks are astonishingly low, said the chief executive officer in the Wellington E.PS Mr. E. V. Hampson-Tindale, today, and the equipment is in very good condition, having been well cared for by units. Gumboots have been taken by the city engineer's department for the use of workmen engaged in drainage work, with the permission of the various controlling authorities.