FORWARD IN 1920!

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 9, 10 January 1920, Page 9

FORWARD IN 1920!

WHAT WILL NEW ZEALAND WIN?

PRIZES FOR ENERGY

AN EXTRA £50,000,000 IN SIGHT.

(By W Stuart Wilson.)

"We must have national reconstruction. We must' have an increase of production"—these are the words that fly almost by day and night. Words; yes. Who will do the work ? The time is overdue for the steady, solid work to assure happiness and prosperity for all classes. Of course, if members of Parliament fulfil election pledges, much, will bo done this year. The wheels' of progress will whirr merrily if the Government performance is equal to vts platform promise—but all Governments are apt to lapse more or less from their pledges. Friends- of mine here say that Wellington City and district have waited long for many things promised by successive Governments—and the waiting continues. Is it not time to act on the Duke of Wellington's words: "Up Guards, and at 'em?" Of course, I do not quote these words in a political sense, for the Progress League and the town-planning societies, acting for the general public, should take these matters in hand. I wish to emphasise the need of an instant campaign to convince the Government that Wellington will not be content with anything less than a fair deal in the expenditure on public works, etc. •

Ask and you shall receive. A very small fraction of what you ask is the usual working rule of a Government. At all events, that is the experience of Wellington. With the knowledge of the Governmental habit of cutting down the grants—allocating about a tenth of the amount requested—the people should not err on ths modest side in stating their needs. Fortune favours the bold —ais Auckland has well proved.

GREAT MOVEMENTS.

The whole of TEe lower part of the North Island is now under the watchful eye of a Progress League, which has its headquarters at Palmerston North. This league will riot press for any unfair favouring of this territory, but it will work for justice, and will rouse the people to a proper appreciation of the truth that Governments help those people who decline to be fobbed off with promises and fed on hope deferred. The league's central executive will be concerned with improvements of transport by road and rail, for this improve-* ment is essential to that increase of production which is the onty sound means of reducing the cost of living. If politicians are sincere in their professions about encouraging production, they will make a remarkable change in their old go-slow policy of road and railway construction.

I am hopeful, too, that the central executive will help in promoting boys' agricultural . clubs, by the aid of Government grants. After consultation with a number of fanning experts, I am satisfied that if this club movement is properly encouraged it can lead to an increase of at least £50,000,000 a year in the next five years in the value of this country's produce. If the movement spreads around the Empire, the people of the Mother Country and the Dominions will be assured of a prosperity surpassing the anticipations of present-day optimists. I have expressed my confidence in the movement by offering a fifty-guinea challengo cup, and I' may • say, parenthetically, that I cannot afford to give such a sum unless it is for a vital national purpose. I am doing this in the hope that this will help to arouse official and unofficial people to the need of forwarding this movement. Here is the right opening for work after all the words about "reconstruction" and "increasing production"—here is something to do after all that has been talked. Here is a-' beginning—and the end can be a gain of £50,000,000 a year Those who have studied this great national movement in the United States ronsider that doubling the present productivity of the soil in New Zealand is a very moderate estimate.

At this point I may well say that the existing and projected progress leagues for New Zealand are similar to the commerce and • botany. clubs which have been so splendidly successful in America.

WEALTH IN WATER POWER.

Naturally the League as a whole will press foi a performance of the promises about hydro-electric power. It is" to be prayed fervently that the water power planks of the Government's platform will not wash out as mere election flotsam. There is a widespread belief that the first need of a progressive water-power policy is the vesting of the administration in a special board, in stead of the Public Works Department, which has already quite enough to do •without the extra load of water.

IMMIGRATION.

It is recognised by thoughtful men throughout New Zealand that a vigorous, intelligent, immigration policy is urgently required for increasing the production of the primary and secondary industries. At present New Zealand is well-known for its wonderful natural resources. It has a population of a little over a million on 100,000 square miles. Within the next few years it should be possible to largely increase this number. One lesson of the war is that such an increase is necessary if New Zealand is to be held by a British race. A policy for population necessarily demands effective attention to housing.

OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS.

The Wellington branch of the League has much important work that demands immediate attention.

A new railway station i 3 resting ou paper in. a pigeon-hole somewhere. Will this yeai see a real beginning—not another rustle of the old,plan, an argument, and a relegation to the pigeonhole—but solid work? Will the citizens insist? or will they grumblingly accept more excuses for another delay of a year or two ? Will this year see a beginning with the making of a respectable main road out of Wellington? Think, of the tedious railway climbs, too, to Uie Manawatu and the Wairarapa. Delay with the Paekakariki deviation, and with the easing of the Rimutaka pull, makes an enormous waste of time and money. The whole of New Zealand suffers for this slow coaching. Opinions differ about the conquest of the liimutaka obstacle, but all are agreed that a change for the better is long overdue. An immediate benefit would certainly come from the u£b of more powerful locomotives.

A NEIGHBOUR NEGLECTED.

It is amazing how Wellington has so long overlooked the resources of neighbour MarTborongh. Blenheim is actually nearer than Masterton to Wellington, and yet, because the intervening space is ? strip of water instead of ? strip of land, Blenheim is metely a vague name to the great majority of Wellington's people. Whet one considers the trading possibilities between the rich district

of Marlborough and the Port of Wellington, the present mosquito shipping service is a comic opera, absurdity. Jf aver a good trading opportunity -went begging, here it is. Surely self-interest should bestir Wellington's business men to work for a good shipping service between this port and Marlborough.

SCHOOLS THAT LOOK LIKE GAOLS.

Wellington people Lave grown accustomed to the gaol-like look of some of ohe primary school 'buildings here, and the little ugly playgrounds. This queer acceptance of such appalling ugliness puzzles many visitors. If the purpose of ihese repulsive-looking institutions was to make criminals instead of good citizens, the buildings and' the grounds are just the sort of things to do the job. The fact that the depressing school environment has not done irreparable mischief must be taken as.a tribute to the hard-working teachers.

Reconstruction is the current cry— which begins to have a tincture of cant. Here is scope' for some reconstruction, real national.reconstruction, to strengthen the foundation of citizenship. I cannot imagine any more important work for the local branch of the Progress League than a; brightening of those drab school buildings and disn<al grounds. Every school committee and every old boys' association should come heartily into a movement to put a different complexion on these desolate places. In a later article I shall be pleased to outline a plan by which any grants available from the State can be supplemented by other money, voluntary funds based on the sense of citizenship, to change a disgrace which has long been a blot on Wellington. <

NOT SOMETHING FOB NOTHING.

Work—hard work—by a strong team of men and women, and funds, aTe needed now to.'acfiieve the objects of these societies. The people who will benefit by a vigorous campaign cannot fairly expect something for nothing. I estimate that for a beginning a sum of at least £10,000 should be raised for the great movement which will command comfort and prosperity for New Zealand as a whole, as well as for Wellington.