HOSPITAL BUILDING PROPOSAL.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18807, 20 February 1931, Page 13

HOSPITAL BUILDING PROPOSAL.

To the Editor of the “ Timaru Herald.” Sir, —Once again Mr Dash has shown his intensely parochial spirit where the benefit of Timaru is concerned. According to a report in your issue to-day, there was a suggestion made that the Hospital Board should consider the advisability of carrying on with their building programme. The mover, Mr R. S. Griffiths, made out an excellent case in support of his proposition, which would be supported by any reasonable citizen who has the welfare of the town at heart. The necessity for a new hospital is there for all the world to. see. The present buildings are a disgrace to a town of this size and importance, but Mr Dash, as chairman of the Finance Committee, promptly killed the proposal. Why is Mr Dash allowed to have so much say in Timaru affairs? It is interesting to see Mr Dash’s strenuous and wordy support of anything for Waimate, and his equally strenuous and wordy opposition of anything for Timaru. Mi’ Dash stated that “the proposal was that they should ask the Government, which did not know where to turn for money, for £18,500 to spend on a building.” If Mr Dash does not know this to be a deliberate falsehood, he should not be chairman of the Finance Committee. If he does, he should be taken to task for his misrepresentation. The truth of the matter is that the whole of the money for the building programme is provided by the sale of debentures to investors, who receive a safe 51 per cent, for their money. The Government only provide about half the interest and sinking fund on the loan, a vastly different position to Mr Dash’s statement. If the citizens could only realise the tremendous benefit to the town for the next year if such a necessary building project could be proceeded with, they would refuse to be thwarted by the verbal histrionics of the gentleman from Waimate.—l am, etc., RATEPAYER. Timaru, February 18.