THE QUEEN'S STATUE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 95, 19 October 1910, Page 2

THE QUEEN'S STATUE.

10 THE EDITOR. j Sir, — I sincerely hope others besides | myself will raise their voices in protest against the proposal to move the Queen's statue from its present site. Why his Worship the Mayor is bent on moving it I cannot imagine. It will certainly I be an expensive job, and, even if it were not, what possible reason can be given for it? .It has been stated that it impedes the traffic. This I emphatically deny, and as I have driven and walked about the streets of Wellington every day for over twenty years I know that I am speaking sober truth when I say it is a help and not a hindrance to traffic. Any driver will confirm what I say. Where there is a considerable open space vehicles tend to meander about along no defined track ; pedestrians cannot tell where they are going, and are apt to get bewildered. An obstacle which turns the traffic along a definite channel is a distinct help. As yet, the traffic is not sufficient to produce any congestion in the Post Office Square, but if it ever becomes congested there, and the statue has been removed, I say it will be necessary to put it. back again in order to regulate the traffic. Island refuges are put up in the~ middle of all wide crossings- in< London. If anything is to go, let it be th^ hideous water-trough which has long disfigured the site. For years it was allowed to leak and produce an untidy streamlet which ran to the nearest gutter or deposited puddles in the hollows. This has been remedied of late, but the ugliness of it is undeniable. Then, to conic to the aesthetic aspect of, the Queen's statue. Queen Victoria was not endowed with a tall, commanding figure, nor with a striking or handsome face, but sho always had a queenly dignity of carriage, and this the sculptor has admirably expressed. If any one were asked to name the three greatest living British sculptors, JDrury would certainly be one of them, and by many good judges this statue is considered one of his finest works, and the bas reliefs on the pediment are really ad1 mjjabJLi,.

We have only one statue in Wellington worthy of the name (I cannot call the parody of Ballance a statue), and j this it is proposed to move from the only central site we have. — I am, etc., A. F. Wellington, 17th Oct., 1910. The City Electrical Engineer was asked to-day if the statue would interfere in any way with the laying of the connecting tramrails from Jervois-quay to Willis-street. Mr. Richardson did not think it would stand in the way. It was chiefly in connection with the approach to the wharves that it might be felt to. be in the road.