The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1936. JUST ANOTHER KNOCK.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13175, 6 February 1936, Page 4

The Pahiatua Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1936. JUST ANOTHER KNOCK.

The Pahiatua Racing Club has bad some hard knocks during its existence, some of them dealt by a Royal Commission which for a time saw the club deprived of its permit, and others by the financial depression, which made a big drain on the club’s resources and forced them, to adopt very stringent economies in order to carry on. In common with other racing clubs the local club has had a staggering burden to bear in the way of taxation. No matter whether the club makes a profit or not, the Government scores every time to the tune of many hundreds of pounds whenever a meeting is held. Fortunately the club was financed by a very reasonable group of people. who gave, and are still giving them, every consideration, and the club, in its turn, has extended equal consideration to owners and trainers bv increasing tin* stakes as far as it is humanly possible to do so. Just when prospects appeared to be indicative of a highly successful year, the club suffered another disastrous blow—the partial demolition of its grandstand and total collapse of the outside booth. With their anual meeting coming off in about three months time, it was necessary for some speedy action to be taken, and accordingly, the stewards empowered a special committee to go into a proposed plan submitted by a local builder and put into practice whatever scheme they thought fit. It was suggested that some temporary repairs might fiil the bill until after the meeting, but it would be utter lolly to spend a considerable sum on a patchwork job which would eventually have to be replaced with permanent appointments. If the committee is satisfied that the price? fer the undertaking suggested (which appears to fid the bill all right) is a reasonable one, they should put the work in hand at once and if there is any doubt as to this, 'they should invite tenders for the job, but whatever is done in the matter, we trust that they will not let builders tinker about on a make-shift job which would he the last word in false economy.