LARGE IDEAS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 120, 23 May 1930, Page 10

LARGE IDEAS

ADVICE TO CHRISTCHURCH

ME. PHILPOT CROWTHER'S

PLAN

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post,")

CHBISTCHURCH, This Day.

A-• colourful description of Christchurch as it might become if it did not bestir itself, and an urging for more foresight and planning, were given by Mr. E. Philpot Crowther at a public meeting last night in support of a harbour in the Sumner estuary. "If you don't bestir yourselves you will be citizens of a town something like those quiet provincial cathedral cities of England, where the dogs go to sleep in the streets," declared tho speaker, amid laughter. "You will have any amount of pleasant walks along the, river banks and plenty of religious services "at street corners on Sundays, but you will have no trade or commerce. Give me £5,000,000 and power and I will give you a harbour, that'will make Wellington sit up. I would first harness the AVaimakariri back in the hills and stop all that silt from coming down. From the river I would supply you with the cheapest electrical' power in the world, and with, the water from the\ turbines I would wash the estuary out to sea as it was washed years ago. Christchurch is'the Cinderella of the cities, and only because you are not prepared to fight for the progress of your town. If you bestirred yourselves you could make your city tlic metropolis of the South Island.- Give mo power and support, and I will make Auckland and Wellington feel sick for all time."