Glamorgan Free Press

COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS. Liberal Meeting at Hopkinstewn. REPRESENTATION OF PONTYPRIDD DIT-ISION. COUNCILLOR H. S. DAVIES AGAIN THE LIBERAL CANDIDATE. A m-eetin of Liberal electors in the Ponty- pridd Division (which includes the Town and Rhondda urban warite) was held at Rhondda Vestrv on Friday evening. having been convened for tlÏ purpose of selecting a, candidate to con- test the forthcoming election in the Liberal interest. Mr John Joseph presided over a fair- ly large attendance, which included Councillor H. S. Davies. the retiring member; Rev W. I. Morris, Councillor D. R. Evans, Messrs Charles Morgan (Liberal agent), Councillor P. Gowan, Rhys Morgan, M.A., W. Jones, (Gelideg), John Charles, R. Gwymgyll Hughes, Thomas Jones (Hafod), Dewi Llewelyn, Ivor Howell, F. C. Rees, D. W. Thomas, Rhys Phillips, J. P. Charles, D. Arnott, R. Martin, etc. The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, alluded to the excellent services rendered by Mr H. S. Davies to the division and the county since his election to a seat on the Councl. Councillor H. S. Davies was asked to give an account of his stewardship, and on rising t9 do so was received with applause. His term of offioe as their representative on the Council would expire on March 7th, and it was now time for them to select a representative in hia place. ("No. no."). He had been thinking for some time that he would now prefer not being re-elected. His reasons were many and various, but the chief consideration was the state of his health, and if they could find a candidate who would be acceptable to the Liberal party he (Mr Davies). would glafcll^r stand aside in that gentleman's favour. Some of his friends had told him he ought to give an account. of the work done during the past three years. It was difficult to comply with that request, bemuse the work of the Council was so extensive amd the duties so numerous that it was difficult to know what to talk about. Buring the last three years, 80 eounctl, committee, and sub-committee meetings had been held in various parts of the county, and of that number he had attended seventy. (Hear, hear). Quite apart from that, though to some extent connected with his duties as a councillor, he belonged to several commit- tees which were entrusted with important du. ties. These included the council of the South Wales and Monmouthshire University, the County Governing Body, and the Board of Governors of the Intermediate Schools. One of the first duties of the County Council to which ke might refer was the task of managing. in connection with the magistrates, the police force ef the county. This was a very important business indeed; a business that took a great deal of time ,and required a great deal of care and, sometimes, a great deal of courage. (Hear, hear). He had acted on the Police Committee ever since his first election to the Council, and he iett bound t. say the committee had effected great improvements in the management of the y police, especially during the last two voars. There had been fi, tough fights, but the improvements had been brought about at last. The members of the force were not removed from one part of ths oounty to another as often as they formerly were, and he thought that, on the whole, they did their duty remarkably well. He believed this oounty now possessed a very fine body of police, and our men were even com- plimented by the Head Constable of the county of Cardiff on the oceasion of the visit of the Prince of Wales to Aberystwyth. (H, hear). Then, again, the Council had to look after the lunatic asylums. This was a very pathetic busi- ness. It was the Council's duty to provide pro- per places for the detention of lunatics and te take care they were properly looked after, and it was truly an important and oo-,tly business. He had not the privilege of sitting on this com- mittee, but their applications for money came before the Finance Committee, of which he had been a member since the commencement of his tenure of office, and it had been on one or two occasions his business to try to curtail their ex- penditure. At the last meeting of the Council he thought the Asylums Committee were getting rather extravagant, and he attempted to reduce their estimate of the cost of building an isola- tion hospital by £1,500, but unfortuuately he failed ia this attempt. Althoug the asylum had been in existence for some years, no steps had been taken until recently to provide an isolation hospital. The Lunacy Commission- ers examined the plans of the proposed hospital, and suggested certain improvements, which made the scheme more expensive, with the result that the committee submitted a proposal to erect a hospital with six beds only, the cost to be £ 3,500. He thought it was absurd that a hospital should cost something like 2600 per bed. Enquiries he had made of medical gentleman went to show thsft according to their experience the building should not cost more than P,300 per bed. and he proposed an amendment to the application. The amendment was seconded by Dr Morris, of Tylorstown, but was lost. The Council were really frightened by a speech made by Mr Tom Hughes. Bridgend, who raised the scare about the possibilities of the early out- break of an epidemic. Havin- waited so long before deciding to build the Council might have waited a little longer to see fhe effect of his (the speaker's) proposed. Another department ef the Council's work was looking after the main roads, and this too was an important duty. By the term "main roads" was meant, princi- pally, the om county and turnpike roads, which were maintained and retained by the county. The Council employed a surveyor and a staff of inspectors and roadmen to superintend these roads. In this distriat the only old turnpike roads were from Pontypridd station to the top of the Rhiw, and from Cilfynydd down to Upper Boat. In the Rhondda they had no old turn- pike road and the county, therefore, did not repair any roadways there. The Council had the right to give ntributions towards the Tnainienemce of roads that were not old turnpike roads, provided they were main roads on which there was a great deal of traffic passing tfirough the district; and be and his local oolleagues had been arguimr that the Rhondda road was such a read and after several attempts the committee had at last promised a contribution as soon as the District Council had finished the widening of it. He was glad the District Council were busilv doing their part of the work. (Hear, hear). Another important responsibility laid upon the Council was to look after the health of the county, and to see that local authorities did their duty in looking after the sanitary welfare of the people, to see that medical men did their duty by reporting cases of infectious disease to the Medical Officer of Health, and to see that proper precautions were taken for preventing the spread ef infectious disease. This work was entrusted to a committee special- ly appointed for the purpose, called the Sani- tary Committee. He was not on that commit- tee. but he had reason to believe it was doing its work remarkably well. Be was glad to find that the Medical Officer, in his reports to this committee, seemed very well satisfied with the way in which the Pontypridd District Council was doing its work,and especially that they had found a site for the required Isolation Hospital. (Hear, hear). There was another committee, called the Local Government Committer, the duties of which were numerous and onerous. They had to bear all kinds of applications for alterations and extensions of wards, making lonas to parish councils and some District Coun- cils, looking after the Allotments Act and many duties of that kind. The work of the ccrr^nitbee was very extensive, and their friend Alderman Walter Morgan was the chairman. (Af plawse). Another important duty devolving upon the Council was to look after the assess- ments of properties throughout the whole of the county. This was an important duty, be- cause it was a great thing to have every part of the county fairly rated, so that the rates would not bear excessively on Oflo9 district or parish and lightly on another. They had a great deal of discussion on this committee about twelve months asro. He did his best to prevent Pont- ypridd being advanced in rateable value by the mmmittee-(h.e,tr, liear)-and he thought he had succeeded, but a certain Rhondda council- lor got rather annoyed because Ystradyfodwg had been advanced ami Pontypridd had not. -It should be explained that the committee had nAde a rule that they would not advance any district unless there had been an increase of at least 10 per cent, during the previous two years. Pontypridd had not increased to the cxlent of i" nnn a^hough there was an advance of ±.o, J0. hut during the same period Ystrady- todwoT had been advanor-d more than 10 per cent. He thniithf he had been successful in keepin- Pontypridd down, but a great deal of noise was made m the Rhon-lda ever this mixtion and at the Tixct committee meeting the. Ystradvfod- w;r men.>br-rs were present in full force. He happened to meet seme of these members out- side the committee-room, and a conversation took place. They ha»d two complaints to make. One was that thev had a large number of houses in Ystra-'lyfodwrr, and the value of these should be deducted from the rateable value of the Rhondda. and the ether was that Ponty- pridd had not been advanced while Ystrady- fodwg h id. He made an agreement with those gentlemen that he would help them in keeping the ralpabl, value of Ystradyfodw? down as far as the emptv houses con if they c,n- j. if tllev would leave Pontvprtfd p.'one. This thev pro- ml(' 1 te f'o. and h- understood the piomfse wa to bo carried out. When, however, th-y ot 4nt-) the committee-room. a member from -in-

other district proposed that Pontypridd be put up, and one of the Ystradyfodwg friends secon- ded—("shame")—so the Pontypridd members were left in the lurch. After that he certainly could not vote for carrying- out the other part of the programme. Another important committee was the Technical Instruction Committee, which had to carry out the provisions of the Technical Instruction Act. The duty of this committee was to give suca education as would enable a man to learn a trade; not to train him for a trade, but to give him such education as would enable him to know the use of tools and such implements—education which would make him a better tradesman than he would be without h. This was carried out pricipally by means of Evening Classes, but it was carried out in other v. ays as well scholarships being given on the Technical side of the University College of Wales and Monmouthshire. There were now in the University 25 young people from this county receiving education and getting P,40 a year to enable them to keep themselves while there. At a recent conference between .-he College Council and a sub-committee of the Technical Instruc- tion Committee, it was arranged that for the future there should be thirty seats instead of twenty-five, and this without anv extra charge. (Applause)., xnat eommittee. also, had some- thing to clo with carrying out the Welsh Inter- mediate Aot, especially with reference to build- ing. That bad to provide money both for the buildings and maintenance of Intermediate Schools, and fchia was done very largely from what was called the "whiskey money"-aaii-h- ter)—money that was paid to the county from the Customs and Excise Duties. Lastly, they had the Finance Committee, and it would be seen this was an important committee when it was known that it very often passed bills amounting to £ 80,000 in one -uarter. The ex- penditure at present was something enormous. Of course, it was not all from the rates; a very large proportion of it came from the Customs and Excise Duties and other duties paid from the Government. A large portion of the money was paid back to the Boards of Guardians for the payment of teachers of industrial training for the payment of medical officers, and to meet other expenditure. A portion, too, was paid back to the District Council to enable them to pay their sanitary inspectors and officers of health, while a large portion was spent in the maintenance of the police. He would not then go into details, but he believed he had given a general idea of what the Council had to do. (Applause). The Rev W. I. Morris moved: "That this meeting desires to heartily thank Mr H. S. Davies for his services on the County Councii, and again pledges itself t. return him at the forthcoming election." Mr Gwyngyll Hughes seconded, and speeches in support were delivered by Messrs Edward Flemming (Hafod), Dewi Llewellyn, D. Arnott, W. Howell, oohii Charles, and others. The resolution having been adopted with enthusiasm Mr Davies acknowledged the vote, and said that if they expected him to fight they must rally round him as well as they did at the last election. Questions having been asked by Mr Dewi Llewelyn in reference to prosecutions under the Food and Drucs Aco, and by Mr Arnott as to the position of Pontypridd in the fight for the county offices, a vote of thanks was tendered the chairman on the motion of Councillor D. R. Evans, seconded by Mr Thomas Jones. This terminated the proceedings.