CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1912, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

NEW PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS ro tub editor. Sir,— ln face of the late havoc in Turkey in the great earthquake of last month, when 32 government buildings, 11,000 dwellings and shops, 35 mosques, and 11 churches Were destroyed, and an appalling loss of life occurred, on the shores of the Sea of Marmora, is it advisable for 'ihe Government to spend over £130,000 in erecting Parliamentary Buildings on an old earth rent? Build» ings, too, that any hostile cruiser would knock into ntins, and our public records become fired and lost? Within an hour's train journey (if the Rimutaka/line is deviated as it should be) an area of 20,000 acres of excellent level land can be acquired for a new capital, removed from both these dangers; and also the frightful congestion that must come, very Bhortly, upon Wellington streets, .where the death roll from tram accident alone will be one person a week as it is now in Sydney. Ido hope the Ministry will pause before they erect any more Government Buildings in Welling, ton. which must always be the greatest seaport in the Dominion, Beeing that Na. ture haß so made it by past volcanic tction, There ai'o many persons still living who saw the earthquake of Januaiy, 1855, Surely we ought not to brave our fato in building now over Sydney,strept. as all those buildings near, the sea will be in ruins some day, as certaih a$ I write this letter. There is never the damage to buildings inland, from earthquake damage, that there is near the Bea. Witness Messina, Mount Pelee, San l?ran» ciaco, Valparaiso, Kingston, and now the Sea of Marmora 5 . all within the past few years. Wellington will increase five times in population before 1962. Its citizens can well spare the Government Buildings, and be the first in the Dominion to m« sist • that oar public records shall be placed in a position of safety.— l am, etc., COLEMAN PHILLIPS. Carterton, 20th September, 1912.