THE TOWN OF SEDDON.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 132, 7 June 1906, Page 1

THE TOWN OF SEDDON.

WHAT TS THE MATTER WITH IT ? SOME OBSERVATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. (By Our Special Reporter.) The impression gained on a first visit to Soddon, the township of the Starborough Settlement, is that it has an up-to-date Public Hall, some nice plantations of gums, an adequate railway station, a commodious hotel, some wellbuilt, serviceable sheep-yards, a few fully-stocked shops, and perhaps fewer pretentious residences; and the visitor, if not fore-armed with a guide and a spare hour or two, experiences some difficulty in finding even these "lions" of the place. Ask him, upon his return to Blenheim, for a description of the township of the Lower Awatere, and he lvill confess his inability to comply. He has good reasons for declining. A second visit will perhaps lead to the discovery that Seddon is utterly "■without form or comeliness." It has no main street, where shops on either side of a well-paved market-place may be pictured to the mind—the future complete of the present partial. Where the busy mart of the miniature city ought to have ere this begfin to form itself, after nearly seven years of prosperous trade, one finds a great gum plantation on the one side of the thoroughfare, and the track of the iron horse on the other.

Another thing which the second visit reveals is that there are great spaces of unoccupied, unfenced land in the basin which any ordinary man would expect to be the centre and pivot of the township; while the shops, hotel, etc., are scattered far and wide, net even within coo-ec distance of each other. Certainly there do appear to be collecting a number of business places on and near the corner of Mills Street, which runs parallel with the railway line,' and Wakefield Street, I the old road which still carries the | vehicular traffic through the township. The putting down of the railway track 1 right through the centre of the town has apparently done away with the possibility of ever having a two-sided mart anywhere near the heart of Seddon. THE CITY'S INORDINATE LUNGS. Puzzled and inquisitive, the visitor, on returning to Blenheim, makes a straight run for the Lands and Survey Office, and is there met with the greatest courtesy, and presented with a map of Seddon, showing the disposition of the sections, and the extent and locality' of the reserves, etc. The light which is the reward of persistent enquiry now dawns upon him. He finds that, what with Recreation, Stock, Police, and Plantation reserves, there runs through the township, from southwest to north-east, and almost at right angles with the railway line, a ten-chains-wide strip of unoccupied land. This oblong is bounded on two sides by the parallel streets named after Messrs Fell and Weld, and is broken in the middle by Mills Street, the rail\vay line, and the row of narrow sections between the latter and Seymour Street. Then it continues in the shape of the Recreation Reserve on to Mr Foster's freehold.

The glory of Seddon is its trees, without which it had been a most unlovely place. But the provision, besides these plantations, of such extensive reservations of various kinds—aggregating in area quite one-third of the whole township—was surely a serious mistake on the part the original layersout of the City of Barleyland. GROWTH OF THE TOWNSHIP. Seddon has grown wonderfully during the past three or four years, but in an entirely unexpected and in some respects, detrimental way. The absolute futility of all attempts on the part of persons wishing to start in business to secure sections near the accepted trade pivot of the town, notwithstanding that quarter-acre allotments taken up at the first ballot were lying in all directions not even fenced, muoh less occupied, compelled resort to a system of landlordism which must be regarded as an evil—that is, of course, in principal. On the town side of Wakefield Street were 20 quarter-acre sections j on the other side was part of a 500-acre grazing run. The grazier; tenant accommodated the enterprising providers of business competition at Seddon by building shops, etc., to suit them, and letting these at a weekly rental. The Land Board could say nothing, having nothing official before them in the matter—nor would they have been wise under the circumstances to have protested. ANOTHER BLUNDER. It is, of course, easy to be wise after the event, but a blunder is a blunder, for all that. The fact that in the whole township of Seddon there have not been provided more than one or two allotments larger than a quarter of an acre has led to trouble in several ways. Persons who wished to run a horse as well, as build a cottage found great difficulty in getting contiguous sections for the purpose. The putting up of the sections—perpetual lease, with almost nothing a year to pay in rent, and practically no conditions attached — occasioned such a rush of applicants that the ballot had to be resorted to in every case, and it was pnly by means of subsequent exchanges that it was at all possible to secure anything like a paddock. Then, again, when the inevitable hotel came upon the scene, it had to be erected in an out-of-the-way-place, quite apart and solitary. -!

The history of the Seddon milk supply question is hardly less eloquent, albeit amusing, of the want of foresight displayed at the outset than is the present condition of affairs in that direction. It appears that the straying cow made itself obnoxious contemporaneously with the taking over by a paternal Awatere Road Bpard of the duty of attending to the Seddon streets. Complaints were duly made by the many who did not possess the bovine live stock against the few who did, and who' persisted in allowing them to wander at will in the "long aero." The Board decided, without much consideration, to appoint an impoundor and have the streets cleared. The next meeting was rendered memorable by the appearance af a numerous deputation of townsfolk, who stated that it had been forced upon their understandings that the logical conclusion to the Board's action would be the starvation of all the newborn babes for want of the nourishing lactael fluid. If the cows were forced off the streets, it would mean their slaughtering or selling-pff, aa there were ne paddocks to run them in. The upshot of the matter was that the Board, decided to let the cows run. Nowadays the visitor to Seddon wonders hugely at the grazing quadrupeds on the road-sides wearing numbered collars, and his question elicits the information that a registration fee of £1 Is per annum secures horn the Board a collar and total immutnty from impounding. A BIG SUBJECT, The adequate treatment of the ills of beddou, and the hppes fpr their remedy, will lead the writer inte another column of valuable space. He had better, therefore, act with discretion, and reserve the hinder half of his article for a day \yhefl "cpny!' pours in less torrentially, " *'" '