“GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4952, 6 February 1937, Page 5

“GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.”

(To the Editor). Sir, —The ratepayers of Te Kuiti, by their action in turning down the loan proposition, have, in my opinion, cleared the way for Governmental intervention. They should know by this time that our socialistic administration is waiting patiently for the chance to merge all local bodies under one head, namely, the P.W.D. Faced as this town is, with an inadequate water system, no sewerage to speak of, it will only be in the interests of the people if the health authorities take a hand in the game and show our ratepayers that they are not the only pebbles on the beach. If electoral franchise could be operative in municipal elections as it should be, the efforts made by some of our legal talent would have been successful, and Te Kuiti take its place as a progressive town, and not a town that is threatened in the near future by a first-class epidemic of typhoid fever. After the very convincing figures placed before the ratepayers by Messrs. Mackersey and Low, I cannot see any argument against the loans in question. In fact, it substantiates my statement that the ratepayers who voted against the loan have strengthened the hand of our Communistic Government in their effort to socialise or merge all local bodies under the one heading of a dictatorship. Mention has been made of Otorohanga in this loan controversy. Next to Te Kuiti, Otorohanga is in a parlous state. In fact, I don’t know what our health officials are thinking about. Some of the backyards in that town are as far back as Te Kuiti in that respect, and speaking personally, I

should suggest that our local police force, in the interest of humanity, take over the Health Department and not leave it to the tender mercies of a few ratepayers, who, by their conservative methods, are not only retarding what should be a progressive town, but are a menace to the health of the community.—l am, etc., J. DIXON.