Wellington’s Pioneers

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 104, 27 January 1938, Page 11

Wellington’s Pioneers

Sir, —Try as I have, I cannot see any merit in the notion to erect the model of a full-rigged ship at the top of Mt. Victoria as a memorial to the pioneer--of Wellington. Such a model exposed on our highest hill to the eastward of tile city appears to me a rather fantastic, it not freakish, idea, for in such a position the cost of maintaining such a model would be almost as great as maintaining a real ship, as it would be fully exposed to the lash of every gale, and it can howl' on Mt. Victoria.

The rigging of a ship is a very complicated business. If it is to be an exact model, the yards would be workable by halyards, and working parts are liable to suffer through long-continued exposure, and the job of painting would never be done. May I offer as an alternative a suggestion to memorialise the first pioneers of this city? Within twentyfive years the Hutt and Petone will probably constitute one large city of 60,000 or 70,000 inhabitants. Those people will require relaxation at the seaside in the summer months. May I then, in all humility, suggest the erection on the Petone beach —where -the pioneers first set foot on New Zealand soil—of a commodious bathing pavilion, which will at once commemorate the first settlers, and serve the ultilitarian purpose named, same to be opened during the centenary celebrations in 1940. This beach is gaining in popularity each year, and its future as a bathing resort for the city of the Hutt is assured. As an old Wellingtonian, I would not like to see anything quite so fantastic as a land-going ship bound to nowhere ou the top of Mt. Victoria. It symbolises little. Equally fantastic would it be to erect on the top of Mt. Eden (at Auckland) a model of the canoe Arawa—l am, etc.. HOBSON STREET. Wellington, January 26.