WELLINGTON'S NORTHERN EXPANSION

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 66, 18 March 1921, Page 6

WELLINGTON'S NORTHERN EXPANSION

Between- Melling and Upper Hutt there is no public school, and no traffic bridge over the river except a bridge, that is situated a mile or two below Upper Hutt, and which serves as a link with the Pahautanui (west coast) district, rather than as a medium of traffic in the Hutt Valley itself. At the same time, this bridgeless and schoolless portion of the Valley is rapidly gathering population. Silverstream has made remarkable stridei of late; the feared

never come, and never will while the house-hunger in the city exists; in fact, there is every indication that, as the cost of building decreases, homes will increase very quickly in the Hutt Valley, and that the settlements from Melling northwards will have their share, especially if the railway is duplicated and electrified and if the time-table h modernised. It is safe to predict that no depression will stop the progress of Wellington's expansion up the Hutt, and that scarcity of money will be compensated by cheaper labour and materials. If that is so, the people of the middle part of the Valley are justified in .-looking ahead, and making plans.

A Silverstream correspondent points out that the carriage of young children by railway to Upper Hutt School is a risky proceeding on a single railway line, and would be unnecessary if a public school were established in a position to serve children whose homes are too far from the Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt institutions. A time when the Minister of Education is cutting down the school buildings votes may not be opportune for immediate action, but the time is not too soon for planning the public services and institutions—particularly traffic and education services—that will be required by the growing community between the two Hutts. Improved services would be more easily obtained if local government was better organised, but there is no borough north of Lower Hutt—Upper Hutt has only the status of a town board—and the district as a whole seems to be inarticulate. Progress depends not only on population but on leadership, which would show how avoidable obstacles to progress can be removed. For instanoe, city-congestion calls for a railway policy that will, force population to the suburbs. Instead of that, the population, in the face of difficulties, is finding its way somehow to the suburbs, and by-and-by, despite inertia, will, by ,its sheer dead weight, force the pace of railway policy. In the meanwhile, the efforts of parents to improve schooling' facilities deserve enoouragement and sympathy.