FIRE POLICE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7936, 5 March 1904, Page 2

FIRE POLICE.

We learn with, regret that the Hawera Fire Police Brigade is in a bad way. The complaint is that a sufficient number of business people do not take an active, personal interest in its operations, that even at the annual meeting very lew persons put in an appearance, and that virtually the work is left to less than a "dozen working men. The members who so far have taken an active interest, at a meeting of the Committee on Thursday evening, wanted to know why they should continue to do so ? They pointed out that they had nothing particularly to gain, and on the other hand stood to lose a good deal. They have no goods to protect from marauders at a fire, but conceivably they might sustain damage to their clothes, or worse still personal injury, and who would recompense them ? The feeling was that if the business people showed an interest in the corps, then the present members would in the public interest continue to serve, but they were not disposed to exclusively run the institution. Perhaps now that public attention has been called to the matter more interest will be taken. The advantage of a fire police is that they constitute an organised body expressly charged with the work of preventing pilfering, work which a fire brigade ought not to have to undertake to the distraction of their attention from their business of, fire extinction. The opinion has been been held that fires have been caused not by accident, but by incendiary tramps who had no particular reason for seeing a place burned down except that they might do a little " looting " in the confusion. The fire police puts a stop on that sort of thing, and so reduces the probability of incendiary fires. This being so, an efficient and well supported corps is very desirable in the interests of business people.