"MOVING DAY."

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 15, 19 January 1910, Page 4

"MOVING DAY."

FOR CITY AND SUBURBS. TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. GREATER WELLINGTON IN 1920. Every day is "moving day" in Wellington and suburbs. If faith has not moved mountains here it has moved hills or large portions of hills. The "levitatibn" art of the pick and the longhandled shovel has altered the landscape in some parts almost beyond the recognition of the oldest inhabitant. The hills lost their everlastingness when the pakeha set his foot here. Immediate needs and fear of the Maori swept the forest away, and other natural features have vanished with it. Wellington, of seventy thousand inhabitants, is now well enough known to this generation. The nice proportions of the municipal debt, the length of the car lines, the building permits per month and other signs of progress are familiar enough, but it is plain that the busy Wellington of to-day is too much concerned with to-day's movements to have much leisure to look ahead for ten or twenty years. People to-day are paying for an older generation's lack of foresight; people of the future may pay for this generation's forgetfulness. CONQUEST OF THE SEA. Greater Wellington is expanding by land and by £ea. Neptune is treated with contumely in Wellington. Land that came into his dominion long years ago is snatched' from his grasp by the Eitiless Whakarire, and is tuyned against im ; he is pelted back with his own spoils. The hindrance of the Falcon Shoal is being cut away to make- a help at Waterloo-quay. When the sea-wall is exte.nded, many more acres will be gainevd by the Harbour Board, and the Government may also do some reclaiming at Pipitea Point. What, too, is in the Government's mind about the Kaiwarra Bight? How far has the Minister of Railways looked ahead? Tihe Hon. J. A. Millar knows ,well enough that he has to secure more land for present needs ,and he hopes to acquire some ashore, but how long will the new territory suffice for growing Wellington? It is commonly believed that the Government, if it hopes to keep the main railway terminus at the Thorndon-Lambton end, will be obliged to do some fairly extensive reclaiming before many, years have passed. During the past two or three years some acres have been won at the Te Aro end of tho harbour. Here the landscape is decidedly ragged at present, but it requires no arduous effort of the imagination to fill in buildings that must soon come on this valuable ground. Plans for new wharves around Pipitea may have already been sketched. The waterfront by the Thorndon Esplanade will be changed utterly in this decade, though the Harbour Board may not be inclined to undertake any more wharf work for the next year or -two. CITY ARCHITECTURE. The special brand of a New Zealand city is the broken sky-line, the medley of the mean and the magnificent. The lowly fish-and-chip shop may stand, without apology, cheek by. jowl with the lordly bank. Shabby crumbling wood and rusting iron, in one or two stories, may be impudently situated between two noble piles of stone or brick. This comical incongruity is being hustled away by the increasing rate. Owners of land in Wellington and the sister •cities are realising that it does not pay to have a delapidated structure on highly-rated ground. Height is the great feature of all the new buildings* When a site is anything from £150 to £200 a foot, economy demands that the height must be proportionate to the price. Lambton-quay, Manners-street, and Cuba-street still offer some ugliness, but the corporation's rates have passed sentence of death on the mean buildings, and the execution is going on. Te Aro Flat is to be changed beyond present belief inside a dozen years. The anomaly of a squalid Haining-street, withing five minutes' walk of the waterfront, has endured for a surprising period, but tho yoar» of this dingy locality, in its present form, can be numbered now, and other streets about there will be transformed. Many acres of excellent building ground, in the )ieart of Greater Wellington, are now covered with houoes of drab appearance. Three- or four years ago the City Council was considering proposals for the resumption of land in the Haining-street, neighbourhood to provide sites for workers' dwellings, but it is questionable now whether the locality will bo suitable for dwelliug-places in the near future. Tn twenty years Greater Wellington's population may be 200,000, and the shop and office and warehouse area will hava to be greatly extended. VARIOUS BETTERMENTS. Before twenty years have slipped by. say the optimists, the widening of Willisstreefc will be completed, and Mannersstreet and Cuba-street will be broadened. The vars .yill no longer be compelled to wait, while passengers fume, on the Cuba loop. Before two decades have gone by, alleges another prophet, it will be totally unlawful for anybody to have a stable abutting a busy tramway stoppingplace ; it will be an absolutely punishable offence to spit on tne footpaths,' or stir up the dust, there with a broom after 8 a.m., or dash the door mat agajnst a verandah pole after 9 a.m. ; noKddy will be permitted vo burn feathers^ or. animal offal, on a large scale, in a congested city street. Within that time the municipal milk supply will be established, and the municipal market may.be a reality— may be, may be. ? An additional maii> will link the city with Wainui, and people on the higher levels will all be joined up with storage tanks. It is believed, too, by some hopeful ones that a wise City Council may some day stipulate that dwellingplaces must be reasonably equipped with tanks to store water supplied by the. ordinary pipes or by rain as a sanitation guarantee in the event of an accident to the high-pressure mains. Much unpleasantness, accompanied by not a little ill-health, was caused a few years asp, when Wellington was cut off from Wainui for several weeks. ART AND TREES. In less than ten years Art's temple, it is hoped, will be something better than the barn of Whitmore-street. What has becoihe of the movement for a. respectable building? When progress was last repor^d in The Post the City Council_ had been approached by the president of the New Zealand Academy, and had been asked to favourably harken to a« request that it should set about providing a gallery in the gap on the west side of the Town Hall. Also some people "gave signs that they were interested in the art campaign, but there has been a palpable lull. In a few years the little trees already planted on the Town Belt, and other little trees to be set next season, will be big trees. In the version of Mr. J. P. Luke, chairman of the Reserves Committee, whose favourite hobby is not romancing, there will be paths among the groves and seats for the weary. And a well-made road or two may be cut through the reserve as close as possible to the boundary, and the old boot and the jam-tin and tattered garments will be no more thrown on the people's estate.