FARMERS' LOSSES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22192, 20 August 1935, Page 5

FARMERS' LOSSES

WOOL AND STOCK THEFTS POLICE MOTOR PATROL URGED Concern is felt by the New Zealand Farmers' Union at the losses suffer*! by the farming community from wool and stock thieves. The executive passed a remit on the subject, urging that-, in view of the increase in sheep and wool stealing by means of lorries operating at night, the Police Department establish a night motor patrol during the fat stock transport period. The Minister in Charge of the Police Department replied an follows: "Although I think it can be hoped that tho increase in the c'ass of offence referred to will prove to be a passing phase, and that recent convictions obtained by the police will have a salutary effect', I share with your executive concern at the losses suffered by the farming community from wool and stock thieves. "To assist in close consideration of the remit, and to arrive at an estimate of the cost, I would appreciate the views of your executive as to whether it had any particular roads, or the roads of any particular district, in mind, or whether the remit refers to all roads in the Dominion along which stock can be conveyed at night. "The period of patrol suggested is the fat stock transport period; does this refer to theft of wool as weld as stock?"