FIRE BOARD POST

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 305, 23 November 1945, Page 4

FIRE BOARD POST

R.S.A. SEEKS INFORMATION. A letter from the Palmerston North R.S.A. in reference to the appointment of Mr W. N. Edgar, who was not a returned serviceman, as deputysuperintendent of the Eire Brigade was received at the quarterly meeting of the Fire Board yesterday. The association said that to the best of its knowledge there were two applications from ex-servicemen, of. whom one at least had qualifications equal to those of the person appointed. The association asked why the board had appointed Mr Edgar in preference to these men. The letter had been held over from the last committee meeting of the board.

It had not been Mr Edgar’s fault that he had not been overseas, said the chairman of the board (Mr V. M. Edgar), for the board had received advice from the National Service Department during the war that appeals be entered immediately should members of the Fire Brigade be called for the ..Armed Services. It was regarded as a most important service by the department, and so Mr Edgar could not be released.

Mr E. J. Lewin pointed out that an ex-serviceman applicant (Mr W. J. McSweeney, the' board’s third officer) had gone overseas in the first few months of the war, and Mr Edgar would have been free to go then also had he wished.

Tile chairman replied that that was Mr Edgar’s personal business, and also he was a married man, while Mr McSweeney was a single man and should more properly have gone before Mr Edgar. The chairman moved that a reply be sent to the R.S.A. pointing out that the board, in its wisdom, had appointed the present deputy- superintendent as the applicant they had considered most suitable, and that Mr Edgar had been restrained from entering the Armed Services by the National Service Department’s instructions. He could not, therefore, be blamed for that. Mr Lewin moved an amendment, that the replv should read “the majority of the board,” but it lapsed tor want of a seconder. The resolution was then passed. The question of the appointment of a° station officer (fourth officer) was discussed and applications for the position read. There were 13 applicants, two of whom had had four years’ overseas service with the* 2nd N.Z.E.F. The board decided to endorse the superintendent’s recommendation that Mr O. Poppieton, of Wellington, be appointed. Mr Poppieton, it was stated, had spent four years in the Services overseas, and a considerable period in prisoner-of-war camps, j Present at the meeting were Messrs V. M. Edgar (chairman) L. A. Hutton, D. F. Smillie, and Lewin. »