WANTED—AN INDUSTRIAL CITY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 179, 14 July 1927, Page 4

WANTED—AN INDUSTRIAL CITY.

YXTHILE on the subject of the depression that is affecting us here in Hawke’s Bay, in common with the rest of the country, it seems worth while our considering another aspect of the conditions that affect this district. As we stand we are almost wholly dependent upon the country areas for our productive capacity. As yet we have instituted no great body of secondary industries such as have gone elsewhere to provide employment for so many hands. The result has been that our population has increased by only comparatively slow degrees, and we find ourselves lagging far behind in the race. Population is not, of course everything, but it is a very material factor in the progress and prosperity of a district. Even for the farming community itself it is a great advantage inasmuch as it provides a nearby market for produce. There seems no reason, excepting perhaps hick of enterprise, why this district should not, like Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago have its big industrial productive centre, where we could make things fol ourselves while at the same time providing consumers for country produce. It has been, as our readers ghoul' know, largely with this in view thaws have so long and persistently advocated the establishment of harbou r and port at Napier tl might within a reasonable time be expected to develop into first class. Strangely enough, it would seem to be only the people of Napier itself that are unable to see the prospects which such an accomplishment would open up for their own town and for the whole district. The country folk have shown themselves fully alive t> all it would mean for them, altogethei apart from the facilities that would be afforded for the shipment away oi their exportable produce. The secrecy which has been ministerially .mposed with respect to the scope of the proposed investigation er Napier Harbour affairs leaves us in ignorance as to whether this consideration is to be taken into account. is most certainly i s one of the most important factors in the case. A port with room lor an industrial city around it is an absolute essential preliminary to Hawke’s Bay taxing its place among the forward moving provincial districts of the Dominion. Even politically, at the present time, we curry but very little weight, and that due mainly to the lack oi population —which, of course, means voters. Nowhere in the Dominion are the conditions more favourable to the establishment of a healthy and happy industrial community, with al] its bodily wants ready to be provided from the country around.