RAETIHI CRITICISM

Wanganui Chronicle, 24 February 1947, Page 4

RAETIHI CRITICISM

SENDING OF VEGETABLES TO AUCKLAND. Criticism that Ohakune and Raetihi should have to provide Auckland with foodstuffs while there was plenty of available land in the city for gardening is expressed by a Raetihi resident, writing in an Auckland paper under the nom de plume ‘‘Visitor.” This is what he says: "On a recent, visit to Auckland I was first impressed and then depresed by the spectacle of a quarter of a million people clinging to the end of New Zealand like avid parasites on a limb. “Perhaps it is Aucklanders’ way of life, but a questionable one. to exist so dependent on another section of the population for their food. Throughout the suburbs I saw innumerable quarter-acre sections either sown entirely in lawns or containing backyards which testified with tangled weeds to the inactivity of the tenants. Toward Henderson and on the Nortn Shore dwellings are thrust into clumps of gorse and manuka leaving scant room even for paths, and certainly showing no signs of gardening attempts. Between the outer suburbs, acres of arable land lie, wastes of weed and scrub. “Auckland, among other centres, constantly drains far-away food sources, like Ohakune and Raetihi. Why? When there is a potential food scufce at. the city’s back door.”