CITY OR DISTRICT?

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 82, 7 April 1933, Page 6

CITY OR DISTRICT?

For a year or more now special technical committees of the local bodies, at the direction of special local body conferences, have been trying to draw up a programme of useful relief works, without regard to local body boundaries. First of all, a technical committee appointed at the instance of the Town Planning Institute brought out a, list of. possible works and a list of preferred works; its field was not Wellington City but the Hutt Valley and the whole district. Since then there haye< been further conferences and further committee work has been done, and the investigational side must surely have fully worked out, opening the way for action that happens not. All through these proceedings we have pointed out that the fault of the local government system is localisation of view, which must be suppressed by the delegates themselves (and their principals) if there is to be any constructive effort to concentrate, regardless 'of boundaries, on relief works of permanent value. Now Mr. W. T. Strand raises the question whether the City Council, which is necessarily the backbone of all district conferences of local bodies, is making special terms with the Government for itself. Behind the question is the further ■ question whether participation in co-operative conferences is only a gesture. This is a matter that concerns members of the City Council as well as the Mayor. Will all the conferring and investigating of useful works count for anything, now that the testing time, winter, is approaching?