GROWING SUBURBS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 139, 16 June 1927, Page 12

GROWING SUBURBS

AND THEIR VOTES

RURAL ELECTORATES' PULL

''COMMUNITY" FACTOR

Tho upper part of the Hutt Valley, from-Silverstream or Upper Hutt northward, seems to bo a sort of shuttlecock between tho rural electorates of Otaki and Wairarapa. This part of the Hutt Valley is walled off by mountains from Otaki-Manawatu on the one hand, and from Wairarapa on tho other. But the mountains do not crest, so far as the architects of electoral boundaries arc concerned. If community of interest and geographical situation wero the solo test, tho upper valley's interest would lie with the lower valley. But the rate of growth of urban and suburban Wellington is so rapid that something must be cut away to tack on to tho rural electorates, in order to preserve for the latter their required population basis. The northern end of the Hutt Valley has for' years been regarded as the something to be cut away. It is the tail of tho urban dog, and the rural dogs grab for it.

The Electoral Boundary Commissioners for years have been tossing it to Otaki,, but this year they have tossed it to Wairarapa. So the problem for tho "antis" in Upper Hutt is no longer "Who will beat Field?" but "Who will fight M'Leod (Minister of Lands)?"

DIFFERING TRANSPORT INTERESTS?

Probably first among bread-and-but-ter problems is transport and communications. The upper valley of tho Hutt is in the outer suburban area. Its suburban railway problems are not shared by either Otaki or Wairarapa. Otaki is so long an electorate, reaching from Ohiro Bay (near Island Bay) to near Shannon, that some of its electors certainly have a suburban railway problem; but their railway does not touch the Hutt Valley at any point, and its aims are distinct. On the other hand, Wairarapa arid the upper valley of the Hutt do happen to be on the same railway, but the former's interest is in the through traffic rather than the suburban. No .closer .ailway touch between Upper Hutt and the people on the other side of the Bimutaka divide is possible unless and until Mr. Fiirkert's five miles tunnel is driven. The late Mr. Coleman Phillips's idea of making Wairarapa South a Wellington suburb—by means of another railway route—seems to be still more remote.

Tho roads over the hills to Otaki and to Wairarapa have improved of recent years and are improving; but it requires a good deal of imagination to assume that the. upper valley of the Hutt has community of interest with Otaki'and Featherston, as against the urban and suburban population amid which most Of the upper valley residents find their living. VALLEY POPULATION'S INCREASE. That the present treatment of Upper Hutt is contrary to the trend of development, and will ultimately be prevented by the increase of tht) outer suburban population, is sufficiently proved by tho history of the Hutt electorate, which is now a compact unit in the lower valley and adjacent harbourside. Not so many years ago Mr. Wilford had to seek his electors as far as Island Bay. Tho Otaki candidates still have to do so.

The growth of suburban settlement in Lower Hutt and Potouo has reduced the area, of the Hutt electorate, and a similar growth from Tawa Flat down to Porirua may do something similar for Otaki, but meanwhile questions arising out of the Main Trunk (Tawa Flat) deviation and land values on the Tawa Flat sido have to be settled. There is as yet no certainty that the conditions that have permitted a forward movement, on betterment lines, in the Pe-tono-Hutt development, will attend the constructing and operation of tho new, double-tracked, better-graded communication with the Porirna Valley.