BROAD OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 108, 10 May 1938, Page 13

BROAD OUTLOOK

CITY AND DISTRICT

1940 THE CENTENNIAL YEAR

MR. HISLOP SUMS UP

"The Centennial Exhibition, to open in November, 1939, will be the biggest exhibition ever held in Australasia," said Mr. T. C. A. Hislop in his addresses to meetings at Roseneath and Kilbirnie last night. "It will be an event worthy pf its purpose, to mark the completion of one hundred years of development of the country and the city as an integral part of the British Dominions.

"In the preparations for this great event I have been fortunate, as Mayor of Wellington, in taking a leading part, and through that work have had the opportunity of realising fully the extent of the Exhibition as it will be and the magnificent display which will be built up from all parts of the British Empire in industrial and scenic exhibits, spectacular attractions, amusements, music, and work in artistic fields.

"Thanks to the help of an unselfish, hard-working, and able body of men, co-operating loyally with me, we have been able to lay the foundations solidly, and now we are able to say that we have reached the stage where the hardest work has been done, in the overcoming of the initial difficulties, and Wellington and New Zealand can look forward to an assured success. BIG ADVANCES BY 1940. "I suggest that it is useful to think for a moment just what the development of Wellington and the surrounding districts will be in the Centennial year, 1940," continued Mr. Hislop. "In all the history of the development of the city, the port, and the surrounding districts the period during which I have had the privilege of being in office is one which shows most marked advance, and there are immediately ahead still further important developments of city, port, and district. "By 1940 access to Wellington . will have been vastly improved by the completion of the new coastal route to Paekakariki, the approach _ from the Wairarapa by the completion of the Western Hutt Road, and the bridging of the Hutt River at Silverstream. The electrification of the Main Trunk railway to Paekakariki and the electric train service to the northern suburbs of Ngaio, Khandallah, and Johnsonville will be accomplished facts. These are not city works; they are works from which the full metropolitan area will benefit."

Within the city itself a number of important developments were in hand and would be completed by 1940, continued Mr. Hislop. Some were more or less directly associated with the Exhibition, as the improvement in the means of access via Oriental and Evans Bays and across the head of the bay at Kilbirnie, and the deviation on the eastern side of the Mount Victoria tunnel, and others were city works proper, as the erection of the new Central Library and the rehabilitation of the city drainage scheme. Harbour works would also by then have been advanced to the* plans already drawn, with, greater developments ahead.

"When we look we do not think of this particular work or that as the factor which made Wellington, city, port, and district, what they are today, and when we look forward we must maintain the same broad outlook, for city, port, and district are interdependent. TO SEE THE JOB THROUGH. "For myself, I have been associated with developments in the past and with works in hand or planned for the immediate future, one of the greatest of which is the Centennial Exhibition. Many of these works have been commenced or planned as a result of the policy of steady progress of myself and my colleagues, and, frankly, I wish to have the privilege of serving the city of Wellington, as I and my forbears have served it in the-past, till these plans for the further advancement of Wellington are. carried through to their conclusion and success.

"This is not a time for the making of promises or the giving of undertakings as to what I will do," concluded Mr. Hislop. "The only undertaking that I will give is that if I am returned as Mayor of the city in which I have lived all my life I shall maintain that broad outlook in the interests of Wellington as a whole, without regard to sectional interests." (Applause.)