WELLINGTON'S PROGRESS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1924, Page 9

WELLINGTON'S PROGRESS

(By "Fleeco.")

A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS. '

• Thirteen years ago I first steamed.into Wellington. It was a sunny Sunday' afternoon when the first Rotorua (now in a Watery bed off Plymouth) on her maiden trip berthed at the King's Wharf. Many ships have come and gone b since then,'seven fat.years and six lean years have flitted away, and in the midst of the years a war in which this Dominion \yrote an imperishable name on the scroll of history. As the Rotorua cast anchor in the stream awaiting the port doctor 1 gazed around your southern city set on seven hills and washed by seven seas. As I gazed, my first impressions, to be candid, were of a mixed character—the shimmering sea, the brown bills, the pinnacles of the mountain ranges' rising tier above tier in majestic grandeur, impressed me quite, as favourably as Capetown or Hobart; but when I looked nearer and beheld your wharves and the multitudes of warehouses covered with corrugated, iron, I thought, here is no abiding city, but a place of tin tabernacles: This, I say to-day, thirteen years aft^r, was my first impression, and must have been to anyone landing on your wharves for the first time, a temporary appearance with the suggestion of a paint famine. Permit' me to remark that when I came off the boat and sallied forth into your streeta and: saw your trams and Post Office, and Town Hall, and commodious shops I • reversed my early judgment, and my prejudice passed into praise, and my condemnation into commendation. If I made such a.volte face in half an hour after being in Wellington, what .must my opinion be' thirteen years after, having been away among the pastures of Hawkes Bay and coming back again for Welcoire Week? .

One old adage says, "Time heals all things," and another, "Love is blind." Permit me, as a visitor, to remark that time has healed many of the blemishes that marred the finest features of your city. The altruistic proclivities of your people have written' themselves on the face of all things. I see. perhaps more than you the work of men who have loved and 'laboured ungrudgingly and unselfishly for the common' weal, the untiring zeal, the unflagging energy, the unremitting toil of "idealists and progressives who have wrought year in and year out through times of prosperity and adversity for the expansion and consolidation and civic life and activities. Wellington has to be thankful'that-while 'she has men who have, prospered in the commercial circles', she has also men who have submerged , their selfish interests for the common good and the progress of the place. I have been in your beautiful city some days; I have made not merely a cursory examination, but have investigated and pried (if you will excuse the word) into your city with all its expanding ramifications. I have seen your people at work in office, shop," and mart, I have witnessed your folk, sober and sensible, at play. I have seen them in the congested areas, in the streets, and on the trams; I have' visited your beautiful beaches, bordered with baches and, bungalows, laughing in summer sunshine, and kissed with the spray from the i)lue Pacific; I have heard the voices of your happy children on the sands; I have listened to the laughter of your lads and lassies; I have visited ,your bays and your beauty spots, and I say, in all candour, that thirteen years' untiring devotion have made "the wilderness to: blossom as the rose."

I have peered over the waterfront from Roseneath at night, and beheld the twinkling lights of Oriental Bay and the lights from the houses on the hillsides, away and away .to the hills like the twinkling of a myriad of stars on the azure dome of night. I have viewed the bays from Kelburn in the blaze of the sun and,seen the vessels unloading and loading their cargoes, and the smaller vessels plying across the harbour leaving a trail of, foam scintillating in the summer sun. Away on a prominent hill I beheld a bungalow in the course of construction. I said to a.man by my side: "What building is that?" "Oh, that is a home for Dr. Truby King, the children's friend." I am glad that, while you give attention to the beauty—and the commerce—that the health of the city stands preeminent, as manifested in your city milk supply, and your care for the babes that are to be the future citizens to lead the city into a large and fuller life and a richer conception! of true citizenship Next Week I leave Wellington for Hastings, Hawkes Bay. I will take away with me happy memories of Welcome Week, and" a lasting impression of Wellington. .