MILLION PEOPLE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 256, 25 July 1930, Page 9

MILLION PEOPLE

Where Could They Go? WELLINGTON’S CAPACITY “Wellington will yet carry a population of one million people,” said the Mayor, Mr. G. A, Troup, at the Advertising Club’s luncheon yesterday. “You ask where they are to be placed. When the present city area is fully built over it will accommodate 300,000 people. I do not say this loosely. I have studied the district with a contour area map, and have figured it out on an acreage basis. Another 300,000 cov 1 be accommodated in the Hutt Valley and Eastbourne, while Ohariu Valley, Johnsonville, Tawa Flat, Porirua, Pahautanui, and Plinimerton will also take 300,000 people. “It will be possible to serve the lastnamed area—all areas —with water from the Hutt River, conserved in reservoirs near the top of the hills separating the Hutt district from the Porirua district. “I feel sure the Hutt River will be trained and controlled with locks to form a waterway from the harbour to Upper Hutt. The great sheet of shallow water in Porirua Harbour will be used in future partly as an aerodrome and a seaplane base, and partly as harbour and docks. “The scope and the magnitude for the improvement of the city have no limits. It has been stated that more has been done in the last four years than had been done during the previous ten, and someone writing to the newspaper the other day declared that the present Mayor was leaving nothing for his successors to do. That is all nonsense. I know of no city with such vast possibilities as Wellington possesses for improvement and extension. For centuries to come the Mayors and eity councils of Wellington will have their hands full despite all they have done, and on laying down the burden of their offices will be able to exclaim as did Cecil Rhodes: “So much to do: So little done!”