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Tie office accommodation at Newmarket, Auckland, consisting of two small rooms, is quite inadequate for the staff of fifteen now attached to that station. Plans have been prepared for building more commodious offices on the vacant site adjoining the present office, and it is hoped to have the work put in hand at an early date. At Wellington the old Mount Cook site at the comer of Buckle and Tory Streets has been vested in the board of trustees of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum, and another site has been acquired in Ruckle Street for the erection of a new station. Provision of the necessary funds to proceed with this work is being asked for. At Petone new offices are badly required, and at Lower Hutt additional land is required adjoining the present police property for the building of new offices. lam now negotiating with the owners of the adjoining land with a view to purchasing the additional land needed for extension. At present we are badly hampered for room there. Land has also been secured at Moera, near Petone, as a site for a new police-station. The strength of the police in the Hutt Valley must be increased to cope with the demands made upon the Service. I know of no locality in New Zealand that is progressing like the Hutt Valley. It is going ahead by leaps and bounds, and is becoming a favourite residential suburb. In Christchurch we have ample room to build a new wing to the present buildings. As at the other centres, offices and quarters for the single men are an urgent necessity. With an additional wing and the old building remodelled in certain directions ample accommodation will be supplied for many years to come. At Dunedin Central Station offices and barrack accommodation present a more difficult problem. The shortage of both is acute. The site of the present offices is an ideal one —very central and in a good position. The building, taken over from the Prisons Department many years ago, was formerly a prison. I am now going into the question of trying to modernize it into suitable offices and quarters for the single men. It is going to be a very difficult job, owing to the heavy construction of the walls and subdivisions. The prison doors and all appearances of a prison should be removed and a system of central heating installed if the building can be altered at a reasonable cost. The police-station and lock-up at Port Chalmers are in a very bad condition and urgently in need of replacement. A suitable site has been acquired, and the preparation of plans for the erection thereon of a Sergeant's residence, police office, and lock-up is now receiving attention. The District Headquarters at Timaru, Greymouth, Nelson, and Whangarei are all in a bad state. They have outlived their usefulness —they are very old, obsolete, have no conveniences, and cannot be made suitable for present-day requirements. New buildings are urgently needed in each of these districts. We have sufficient land at Timaru, Greymouth, and Nelson to build. At Whangarei we are in need of some additional land, and I am negotiating for the purchase of a section adjoining the present police-station. New offices will in the near future be required at Wanganui, New Plymouth, and Napier in that order. All of these offices are very old wooden buildings, obsolete and inconvenient. A site has been purchased in a central position in Hamilton midway between Hamilton and Frankton with a view to erecting within a few years new offices. The present offices are at the extreme southern end of the town and right out of touch with the business area. The present accommodation is inadequate, and, as the existing site is not suitable, it was considered opportune to get a suitable site and build on it rather than add to the present inconvenient offices. Gisborne district will require additional accommodation in the near future. The present offices are good. Palmerston North headquarters are the worst in New Zealand. Plans for a new station have been approved, and it is expected that tenders will soon be called for the erection of the building. The estimated cost is £20,000. The plans provide for the most up-to-date modern police building in the Dominion. An addition to the Invercargill headquarters station was finished during the year, and the accommodation is now reasonably good. The erection of the proposed new buildings cannot, of course, be all completed in one year. It will 110 doubt take at least the best part of two years to complete the more urgent work, the remainder -to follow on in order of urgency. Contracts have been let for the building of police-stations at Kaeo and Te Whaiti, and the work is now in hand. Authority has been granted for the erection of a new police-station at Manunui, and plans are in course of preparation for new buildings at Ellerslie, Tauranga, Rotorua, Levin, Mosgiel, and Balclutha. Suitable houses for use as police-stations have been purchased at Maori Hill and Millerton, and the purchase of similar properties at Matawai and National Park has been authorized. Strength. —Parliament last session authorized the addition of fifty men to the strength of the Police Force. Owing to the outgoings by way of retirements, deaths, and resignations it was not possible to make up the authorized strength to the additional fifty, but with the present batch of recruits now in Trentham Camp this will be done. During the year the Government authorized an additional 125 men being taken on the strength of the Police Force in order to grant the Police a forty-eight-hour week in lieu of the existing fifty-six-hour week. To put this policy into operation arrangements were made with the Defence Department for the use of the facilities at Trentham Camp to train these men as our own Training Depot could not accommodate such a number. The men underwent a three months' course of training, which they completed on the 12th August, when they were posted to the various police districts. The forty-eight-hour week is now being brought into operation throughout the Dominion. This relief of one day per week from duty is greatly appreciated by all ranks of the Service. As it was not possible to

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