WELLINGTON AS IT WAS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 10, 11 July 1936, Page 10

WELLINGTON AS IT WAS

SOME PROMINENT

MEN

ADVENT OF THE CAR

AMUSING RESTRICTIONS

(Written for "The Post" by F.W.W.)

The representatives of Wellington : City in the House of Representatives fifty years ago ware Messrs. George Fisher (Wellington South), C. J. Johnston (Te Aro), and Dr. 'Newman. (Thornton); and in the following year Mr. Fisher (Wellington East), Mr. C. B. Izard (Wellington South and Suburbs), and Dr. Newman (Thorndon). At the next election the city was' an undivided electorate, and it was represented by Messrs. John Duthic, W. McLean, and G. Fisher. After them came Messrs. F. H. D. (later he became Sir Francis) Bell, Mr. Duthie, and Sir Robert Stout, with Dr. Newman representing the Suburbs. Five of these gentlemen, Messrs. Fisher, Bell, Duthie, and Johnston, and Dr. Newman had been Mayors of the city. Indeed, municipal service in Wellington has commonly been a stepping-stone to the legislative halls. Other ex-Mayors who have represented the district in Parliament were Messrs. C. M. and J. P. (Sir John) Luke,' J. G. W. Aitken, T. M. (Sir Thomas) Wilford, D. McLaren, and R. A. Wright; while the present members for the city and its suburbs —the Hon. Messrs. P. Fraser and R. Serhple, and Messrs. C. H. Chapman and R. McKeen, besides Mr. Wright, all saw service ar6und the council table before they entered Parliament. >■ ■ HUMOUR IN ELECTION TACTICS. One of the outstanding personages in public life about this time was Mr. George Fisher. Graduating from the compositor's "case" and newspaper reporting to the Hansard staff, Mr. Fisher was elected member for Wellington South in 1834, when still a mem'oer of fee official reporting corps, actually stepping from the official recording gallery to the floor of the House. Sitting in six Parliaments, he was an incisive debater in them all, and held the portfolios of Education and Customs, in one of the Atkinson Ministries, from 1837 to 1889. In his later election campaigns Mr. Fisher had a way quite his own. While his opponents hired halls for the purpose, Mr. Fisher used to address the electors from the tail of a spring-cart, and no rival candidate was ever certain that G.F. would not at the close of a meeting take possession of the platform and get in a speech in favour of his own candidature. On one occasion his return of election expenses, which Parliamentary candidates are required to submit, was "Twelve, and sixpence halfpenny (or some such sum) and a packet of cigarettes." THE HEALTH OF CITIZENS. To Sir Francis Bell the city was indebted for its present . sanitation system: Prior to his, election to the Mayoralty in 1891 the whole of the sewerage of Wellington was discharged into the inner harbour, with floating effects that had best be left to the imagination. Qne of the chief planks in the election platform of Mr. Bell, as he then was, had been the provision of proper drainage, and during his term of office he saw that it was. given effect to. This involved the driving of an outfall tunnel from Adelaide Road under the Hospital grounds, and carrying sewers over the Lyall Bay sand-dunes, and thence to the outlet on the coast of Cook Strait, and there was, and still is, a rising main from Te Aro to the mouth of the tunnel, through which the sewage, accumulated on the low levels, is pumped by means pf compressed air. Until this scheme was carried out the inhabitants had been accustomed to look >for autumnal outbreaks of typhoid ; fever every year. From that time onwards such plagues became unknown. The oMier eminent services of Sir Francis to the Legislature, the Bar, and the city welfare have been so recently reviewed, in connection with his death, that repetition here would be superfluous. PIONEER OF MOTORING. The name of Mr. W. McLean, M.H.R. (as we called the members of the House in his' day of membership), ought to be held in remembrance by the scores of thousands of motorists who today flash along our roads and streets, for he was the first man in New Zealand to import and drive motor-cars. Moreover, his name begins the title of the first statute passed by our Parliament on the subject of motor traffic, viz., the McLean Motor-car Act, 1898. It described itself as "an Act to authorise William McLean to use Motor-cars, and to enable other Persons to obtain Permits and Licences for a like Purpose." In private life Mr. McLean was a commission agent and secretary of loan companies, with an office on Lambton Quay, right opposite Barrett's Hotel. Early in 1898 he imported two motorcars. They were primitive -concerns such as the owners of the streamlined sedans of today would sniff at with contempt. Still, they were the first fruits of the motor-car season of New Zealand. The worst of it was that when Mr. McLean got them they were of no use to him, because the law was dead against his running them. He could allow them to crawl, but they must not run. ARCHAIC CONDITIONS. The position under the law as it then stood was that motor-cars were classed with traction engines. This meant that if they were to run, or to pass along the streets at any pace at' all, there must be a man walking at a given distance in front, and another walking behind, to warn people, on horseback and those in charge of vehicles of the proximity, of the metallic monster. Power was even given to the driver of a vehicle or a horseman to cause the engine to stop in (jrder that he might pass. So there was nothing for it but legislation, and it had to be a private Bill. Mr. McLean, who had then not reached Parliament, paid his £200 for the privilege of having his name immortalised on the Statute Book, and after a certain amount of discussion the Bill went through. The flying chauffeurs of today will smile at the speed-limit that was fixed. "No motor-car," the Act declared, "shall travel along a public highway at a greater speed than twelve miles an hour, or than any less speed that may be prescribed by regulations." And" though the Bill, when first introduced, gave Mr. McLean a monopoly of motor-traffic, it emerged from the legislative mill with an amendment allowing "any person desirous of using motor-cars" to apply to the Government for a permit. The McLean Act, of course, was only a beginning, and has been smothered under the numerous volumes of motor-traffic legislation since enacted.