THE SUMMIT ROAD.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19317, 23 May 1928, Page 11

THE SUMMIT ROAD.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE PRESS. Sir,—l have read your leader on the Summit Road and. also Mr Charlewood. 's letter, and I cannot get any comfort or pleasure out of either, certainly no help, as to thanks, well! Mr Charlewood makes no secret of-his objection, and you take up the same attitude, Mr Editor, to my collecting or raising money and then proceed to expend that money on whatever I may think desirable, but you do not put it that way. You make no secret of' your desired objection to my having any power independent of the. Board of Trustees, to put it plainly, I am to be deprived of all power or authority to proceed or do any work for th 6 Summit Road without first getting the consent or authority of the Board of which I am a member. Now Mr Charlewood was opposed to the purchase of the seven sections right underneath the windows of the Sign of the '' Takahe''—and the majority of the Board supported Mr Charlewood. Now on one of these sections it was intended to build a tearoom. This would not only have blocked the fine views from the new tearoom windows, but would have brought competition, which would have ruined all chances of the "Takahe" making enough to meet even interest, and you would counsel my complete submission in such circumstances. Well, I tell you flatly, and your readers, that I will never submit to have my activities or my outlook as a man trying to live a useful life, interfered with by a Board of Trustees, the Christchurch Press, or any number of the readers of your otherwise enlightened paper. The Committee that was supposed and intended to rule my activities in connexion with the Summit Boad work in 1916 opposed my action' in building the Sign of the "Kiwi," so I went outside to find someone-who could look ahead, and I found one in Mr George Gould, and he opened that now popular Summit Boad house in 1917. My outlook into the future needs of tHe Summit Boad led me to ask Mr Cracroft Wilson to let me purchase, in 1918, the site on which the "Takahe" stands. During November 27th to April 28th, six months, 16,226 people had been served in the new room upstairs. Now the purchase of this now valuable site, and the building of this house was done absolutely without authority. The public alone may stop me, but they will not. Pessimists will not do much good and I .am surprised at a professedly enterprising journal supporting them. I have alwasy thought The Press, ofwhicli 1: am a regular reader, supported individualism as a quality in man worth preserving.—Yours, etc., H. G. ELL. May 22nd, 1928.