EMERGENCY CORPS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 227, 23 August 1940, Page 6

EMERGENCY CORPS

DISTRICT PROPOSALS CONFERENCE TO. BE HELD Proposals now under consideration tor the application of the Emergency Reserve Corps Regulations to this district define the area of which Palmerston North will likely be the headquarters as extending from Otaki to the Rangitikei River and to the northernmost boundaries of the Oroua and Pohangina counties. A meeting of representatives of the local bodies within this area is to be called in the near future.

When the setting up of the Emergency Reserve Corps was announced by the Government the Mayor of Palmerston North (Mr A. E. Mansford) wrote to the Minister of National Service (Hon. R. Semple) offering full cooperation in connection with the Government’s proposals in this direction. In reply to this offer he has received a letter from Hon. D. Wilson (Associate Minister of National Service) which states:

“It is proposed to call a meeting at Palmerston North and this will be done as soon ah possible. It is desired that at the Palmerston North meeting, in addition to representatives from the city of Palmerston North, there should be at least three representatives from each of the boroughs of Feilding, (Shannon, Foxton, Levin and Otaki, and from each of the counties of Kiwitea, Pohangina, Oroua, Manawatu, Kairanga and Horowhenua. “If convenient to the local authorities, it is hoped that the Mayor (or chairman) and the clerk will be two of the representatives in each case. In the case of the meetings arranged so far, an invitation has been extended to the members of Parliament in whose electorates the local authorities are situated.”

What will be the position of the Palmerston North Emergency Committee under this expanded scheme is a point on which information will be sought at the meeting.. In September last, at the request of the Government, an Emergency Committee was set up in Palmerston North and a complete and thoroughly detailed organisation evolved for the purpose of meeting any emergency which might arise affecting the communitv, this organisation being just as applicable to disruption and damage by earthquake as other causes. Since the committee finished its initial task it has been more or less in recess, but the organisation has been held in readiness so that all eventualities would be covered and so that those sections which would operate first could move within a few minutes of a call being made on them.