LOCAL & NATIONAL INTERESTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 3

LOCAL & NATIONAL INTERESTS

A CHJUSTCBtIBCH,.GEIEYA]SrCE.. {X TZUSGBAPH — SPECIAL TO THE POST.] CHEISTCHURCH, This Day. The Mayor of Christchurch censui'es the Lyttelton Times severely for failing to support his demand that the Government should hand over the Provincial Council Chambers to the city. In Auckland, he says, a proposal for securing an -advantage for the city would be supported by everybody, -the newspapers included, but the Lyttelton Times has injured the scheme by saying that the Government ought to consider national interests before local interests. Incidentally the Mayor quotes some interesting facts connected with the history of Christchurch. The land on which the Provincial Council Buildings stand, on the banks of the Avon^ was reserved originally as a site for a hospital in 1864. It was found that the land was not suitable for that purpose, and five ;acres of land in Hagley Park were taken for the hospital. Subsequently the area was increased to eight acres. Bolh the land on the river bank and the Park belonged to the citizens. No compensation was given for taking the Park land. The General Government, therefore, obtained two sites for nothing. In the early days there was a reserve eighteen chains wide around the city inside the area enclosed by the belts. That large and valuable area was sold by the Provincial Council. The money was used to pay for the Lyttelton tunnel, and the tunnel, like the land on the river bank and in the Park, was handed over to the General Government. By the loss of those reserves around the city, the citizens were deprived of property which at the present time would have yielded, income equal to the total rates now levied. The tunnel, the hospital grounds, and the site of /the Provincial - Government Buildings are Dominion property, but the citizens of ' Chrietchurch, says the Mayor, have been deprived to make them bo.