Admission to Parks

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 154, 15 June 1935, Page 6

Admission to Parks

(To the. Editor.) Sir, —In reply to “Hockey,’' 1 just wish to inform him that 1 did not intend going to the hockey match in Cornwall Park on King’s Birthday, but having made arrangements with friends to join them in the park for the purpose of a little reunion and a quiet chat, was firmly informed that I would have to pay IoF that privilege. I claim to be as great a sport as “Hockey” and his friends, but it handing over our parks to a favoured few to the exclusion of the many is a qualification, then they have it on me. I have never borrowed, begged or stolen sixpence in my life, so 1 am not going to start by asking for sixpence to watch a game of hockey. I would suggest that a small area be set aside for the Hockey Association, so that they may charge or do as they wish, as I strongly object to them charging a person who may wish to see the birds and animals in our park. I notice that “Sixpence” takes exception to my mentioning Mr Coates’s name and seems to think that I was sneering at the Minister for surpluses and deficits. If so, lam sorry 1 cannot apologise, as I cannot offer a hand or word of sympathy to a member of a Government that would leave such a legacy of an unemployed army as the Forbes-Coates Coalition has done without being able to provide any solution beyond appointing an Unemployment Board that is in no way responsible to the people, which has also failed to solve the problem. Yet we find one of its members, through our Government, receiving a 'knighthood.—Yours, etc., “A VICTIM.” June 14, 1935. [This correspondence is now' closed. —Ed. H.B.T.]