THE DOMINION'S' CAPITAL

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 1, 26 September 1907, Page 14

THE DOMINION'S' CAPITAL

"WELLINGTON'S WONDERFUL ; GROWTH. While Dominion Day affects the whole of New Zealand, the real significance of tho chango of status will be inoro readily realised by city folk than by those who aro " with God in tko pastures," and nowhere more, than in Wellington—CitV of tho Strait—the capital of tho Dominion. And whata chango has como over the scone in Wellington since tho initiation of this star in constellation of civilisation. What a delightful original sceno must this harbour have presented when the first ships of tho Now Zealand Land Company tacked into port, and, ignoring tho now populous southern bends of tho bay, stood up for tho Petone roadstead! Early WellingtonOld William Reave, an old whaler whe died here last year, made Port Nicholson early in 1839, and carried a clear view of the scene to_ his deathbed. In an interview lie said Wellington, or, I should say, what is now Wellington, was tho_ first port made: and a pretty, spot it was, with the native bush extending like a' soft cloak of green from tlio hill-tops to the water, with only a few _ insignificant clearings round the, Maori settlements at Pipitoa and Te Aro." So gracefully described in a fow words, tho picture is a perfect one. Tho aesthetic will sigh "Hoigh-lio!" at tho chango. Tho soft green cloak lias disappeared entirely i from . tho foreground, tho shelving hills, have, in tho transforming process, boon disguised as " cuttings," tho waving raupo flat of To Aro is a stewpan of nouses reeking with humanity, arid where' tho rata and the troo fern waved, and curtsied in the breozo house-seed, flung from below, has taken root and-thrived marvellously, until the sky lino is .becominga jagged row of house-tops instead of tho graceful line of tho mountain ridgo. Wellington has grown I The exclamation is a general 0110 from tlioso who hayo been away from the placo any time, and nothing is more prosaically true. It has. population. Take its population. Many years ago tlio lato Sir Georgo Grey handed to the Registrar-General (Sir. Von Dadelszen) an old register, with yellow leaves and faded writing, which recounted that in 1842 "the total white population in tho district of Port Nicholson was 2094 males and 17(tf females, in all 3801, which number would bo almost exclusively tho people brought to tho colony by tho ships of tho Now' Zealand Company. ■ For some time after that tho population was so scattered that when a census or an estimate of tho population was made that of the whole district was secured, not the township. The following figures will show the progress of population from tho earliest consus up to 'last year:— . 1842 (district) 3,801 1851 „ 6,409 1860. „ ... ... ... 7,9!)1 1871 „ - 29,790 1884 (town) ... ... ... 22,885 1895 „ ... ...' ... 36,0(10 1901 „ ' ... : ... <ttG3S 1906 „ ... ... K?,563 Thcso figures present ono striking feature. It will bo noticed that up to 1860 Wellington had gono ahead steadily but very slowly, but it had " made good," inasmuch as tlioso that camo out from England remained and reported satisfactorily. Then camo the cheap travelling of tho immigrant days, arid tho sudden rise in numbers that necessitated barracks being provided for tho .accommodation of tho newcomers until, such time as they " struck a trail " for themselves. Tho writer, as a boy attending tho Mount Cook i school, qan distinctly remember the quaint processions of those foreign English marching two abreast up Taranaki Street to the barracks in Bucltlo Street that had been deserted by tho Imperial troops only a fow years previously, and the memory of tho colonial boys' cheeky superiority as they yelled " New chum! " " New circii I" to tho grinning immigrants, who doubtless felt tho inferiority implied in the nickname. Tho growth of tho city during tho last five years —from 1901 to 1906 —has been very remarkable, and there is no reason, to believe that tho ratio of increaso in population is not being maintained. House-agents have no doubt on the matter. Building a City. Wellington's growth has not boon restricted to the niero increase in population. It lias grown in other ways. Big lumps of harbour have been commandeered in the business of building a city, in which connection it is interesting to recall the old beaeh lino and comparo ifc with .the harbour front of to-day. Taking the destructor chimney at Clyde Quay'' as a startingpoint, tho line of harbour foreshore is that at present pursued by, Victoria Street as far as Bing, Harris, and Co.'s warehouse at tho corner of that thoroughfare and Harbour Street. Thero the beach turned the corner, and its alignment is excellently preserved by tho doublo sweep of Lambton Quay and Thorndon Quay, for the wholo • of which distarico there was merely room between tho hill and the line of beach road for a single line of shops and dwellings—on tho otli6r sido of tlio road was tho beach lapped by the waters of tho bay. The site of the Commercial Union Assurance Company and tho Central Club on tho corner of Lambton Quay and Grey Street was a " beach and bay" sito when prosentcd to the Oddfellows by Sir Georgo Grey on the reprosentatimi of Mr. Thomas M'Eenzie, still amongst us, and it is really only a few years since tho water used (at high tide) to ebb and flow under tho back balcony of tho old Empire Hotel in Wellington. Now there aro business streets, flanked with blocks of five and six-story warehouses between that and tho harbour front, and hundreds of acres of city proper lie between tho beach (as the old. residents still call Lambton Quay) and the haunts of tho watersido worker. The Future. And what does tho futuro hold in its secret hand? The reclamation of tlio harbour is not yet finished. Tho straightening of the Hutt railway lino will mean the filling-in of many of tho little bays along the route, and there ife talk —serious talk—of reclaiming portions of Evans' Bay for industrial purposes. Tho city is growing, and tho needs of the future must be anticipated ; but tho limit of the efficacy of reclaiming comcs when the cost of tho process —measured by tho depth of harbour —becomes as great- as tho prico of land equally suitable for the purposo intended. This limit is not far away, as far as Wellington's inner harbour is concerned, but thero :m----sballows at the head of .Evan's Bay that may ono day become terra firma Meanwhile, the creeping houses an obliterating the green of the liilb above, the io'.vn, and tins house-agent 'cannot supply the shelters demanded by ' Hie ever-eoming newcomers. Whether they remain hero or take to the land. the industrious of tlmm form the sap that is fructifying what is the part of tl:i» Dominion and one oi tlie first cities in Ausi.-aiasia.