THE FIRE BRIGADE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12055, 27 August 1902, Page 4

THE FIRE BRIGADE.

If the formal taking over, by the city authorities, of; the new fire brigade building does not mark the completion of our fire prevention reforms, it is a very pleasant and promising event, i During . recent years, in which Auckland had outgrown - the old brigade i system and found it ■ an incubus rather than' the advantage it once was, to comment upon our fire fighting service was to ; search the popular vocabulary for comminatory terms. s : Yesterday all was different. No longer need our mayors « demonstrate their ' civic patriotism by heading bucket-brigades while " tens of thousands of pounds vanish in smoke. Mr. Kidd had the gratifying duty of officially exhibiting a fine station-house, manned by an effective brigade, and of asserting without bombast that when the alarm service and the brigade equipment are completed, we shall have at ■ last a system which will fairly rank with that of r other, progressive cities and which will do credit to our municipality as well as profit the purses of its citizens. Nobody grudges public expenditures obviously called for and shrewdly made. The ratepayers of Auckland cheerfully voted the somewhat large amount required to put the Brigade upon an effective footing and are more than pleased with the results so < far attained and the still more satisfactory prospects. The manner in which alarms are now responded to and the way in which the brigade now gets to work is already filling the public mind with a confidence which Superintendent Woolley and his men work hard to deserve. They are not yet able to do the efficient work, which we may look for from them, owing to that uncompleted condition of the system to which the Mayor referred. But with its completion we may expect the fullest satisfaction and corresponding commercial advantages, which is more than we shall get from any State Fire Insurance system, as Mr. Kidd very aptly inferred.