PALMERSTON NORTH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 233, 30 August 1935, Page 6

PALMERSTON NORTH

Writing in the New Zealand Railways Magazine, Mr 0. N. Gillespie devotes a prominently displayed article, splendidly illustrated, to Palmerston North.

As local and district residents will find much of interest in it, the article is herewith reproduced with the permission of Mr Gillespie. New Zealand, owing partly to its configuration (notably in its possession of many harbours and natural centres) but still more to wise early development policies, has largely escaped the ravening evils of centralisation. This has led to its possession of dozens of country boroughs whose amenities of life are quite equal to those of our large cities. The extent of this phenomenon is unique in the world. For instance, when a farmer or business man sells out in New South Wales, he naturally gravitates to Sydney. In New Zealand he stays in the district, builds a good home and proceeds to spend his leisure with the folks he already knows in and about the bowling green, the clubs, or whatnot)

There are small towns in the world with the same sort of general standards of material well-being as Palmerston North, but they are holiday resorts or stopping-off places for sightseers. Even these, however, lack many of the excellencies of our town. I am taking Palmerston North as the finest example of the claim that we have the best country towns in the world, because it is nothing else. It is simply a farming centre, largely living upon the distribution of goods to a large agrarian and pastoral population. It has no hot. springs, ski-ing or big game fishing, its local industries and its trading organisations are the springs pf its existence. I am not going to weary you with figures about gasworks, abattoirs, electric light and power, drainage, sewerage and the other highly efficient municipal undertakings. The telephone is almost universal in every house, and Queenstown or Russell can be rung in a couple of minutes. The transport system is by motor buses, a large modern and imposing fleet covering the whole town area. In the light of modern developments, Palmerston North bus been fortunate in avoiding the electric tram installations possessed by many smaller New Zealand towns. The hospitals, public and private, are up-to-date and of world standard effiiency.

'Those, interesting and marvellous as they may be, are commonplaces of New Zealand’s surpassing standard of material comfort. Jt is well, though, to remember with pride that many or most of them are lacking in much larger cities in U.S.A., England, and elsewhere, What I want to stress here is that

"MODEL COUNTRY TOWN”

WOKE OF PIONEERS PRAISED

this profusion of amenities of life richly endows the provincial centres of New Zealand. Let us consider the place. Palmerston North is flat, and its streets are straight and at right angles. Its pioneers, with the splendid vision of their day, left the huge “Square” as a “lung” for the city In the making. For many a year, it was a paddock with four sides of straggling buildings of varying heights and gaps like missing teeth in a boxer’s jaw. To-day it is a thing of beauty, with glowing gardens, noble trees, ornamental waters and ringed by handsome buildings on its four sides. The fortunate folk who dwell here have the remarkable combination of all the advantages of country and urban life. .Let us do the town and imagine spending a month in it with nothing to do but amuse oneself. A supply of reading matter is assured. Not only is there a good municipal library, but a number of private ones in genuine up-to-date bookshops, some of which could take their place with the good ones of the largest cities of other lands. All the English magazines, the weeklies of every description, most of flip. American and many foreign magazines are stocked. The New Zealander, according to A. P. Herbert, is the greatest reader in the world of the more serious literary and topical review type of weekly or monthly. The general talk in club and borne will be good. In this connection let it be always remembered that such is the wide incidence of travel nowadays that Palmerston North is nearer to London than a town of its size in Shropshire. No day in the year sees less than fifteen thousand New Zealanders in London and Palmerston North will have more than its proportionate quota.

Its two daily papers are on full cable service and their readers are fully informed on world affairs. This country newspaper excellence was an everlasting source of wonder to “A.P.H.,” who commented freely to the writer on the fact that whenever the train stopped “a newspaper came aboard, well written on all topics and all the happenings of the day before in Czechoslovakia or Ireland.” There will be no sign of provincialism, except the best sort of local pride, and 1 have flouted this by not describing the place as a city. We live, as it were, at the small end of the telescope, looking out,' and are profoundly interested in international doings.

’fhe drapery establishments would adorn any large city. As well as dozens of smaller ones, specialty shops and so forth, there are three palatial emporiums of city dimensions. Many a

girl having bought tlio latest thing m London, finds that it has raced her to Palmerston North by an earlier steamer. What Americans call the “hardware store” is in evidence, modeni and capacious and richly stocked Commercial temples of real grandeur, house establishments devoted to all the recognised lines to fill the buyer’s needs.

The petrol station is übiquitous, the motor depots are as enormous as one would expect from the fact that this town and district has a car to every six and a-half inhabitants, the second highest average in the world, beating some of the States in the Union. The scale of business enables that no fee is levied for shopping locally. As wo say here, the “prices are right.” The hotels, and there are many, are capacious, modem and comfortable. One is owned by the oldest continuous holder of a license in the British Empire, as far as can be ascertained from the London Council of the L.V.A. In passing let me say that a widely travelled American visitor has just stated to the writer that the standard of the country town hotel in New Zealand is definitely the highest in the world. It is time that the bunk about the backwardness of our hotels for tourists should bo refuted. I see that Vicki Baum says she had to wait in a queue for her bath in Auckland. I do not know where she dwelt, but another couple of shillings a day would have given her a room with a bath in most hotelries anywhere in New Zealand.

As would be expected from a district containing one of the richest growing land areas of the world, the food is perfection. One hotel grows all its own food, from pork to parsnips, on its own farm. There is a plenitude of imposing and beautiful private homes. My American visitor said to me, “Who are the guys that build these lovely homes in a small burg like this . . . where do they get the mazuma?” I could not tell him. The rich soil makes gardening easy and every cottage has its blaze of colour.

The public gardens, notably in the Square and the Esplanade, are everlastingly beautiful. Who has not heard of the Cherry Tree Avenue, which is such a Dominion sight in a country of countless garden wonders, that excursion trains arc run to it in the flowering season. The schools, from the notable. Massey College to tl»3 smaller primary establishments, are artistic and something must he said of two superb churches. Owing to the rapid growth of ivy and Virginia creeper and the luxuriance of lawn growth, buildings of this type soon wear an air of age and time-garnered beauty. The general recreational facilities in Palmerston North are adequate to all tastes and to anyone’s need. It is possible for the complete idler to live a fully rounded'life of pleasurable activities without leaving the town. Consider the local Opera House. Here in this farming centre, thousands of miles and two oceans away from the world’s cultural capitals, Pavlova has danced. Kubelik and Heilitz have, played, Gnlli Curci has sung, Sybil Thorndike has given them “St. Joan,” 1 just to take a few recent names at random. A legion of the great names of music and drama have been billed

on its walls from Sousa’s Band to H. B. Irving’s “Hamlet” from Jean Gerady to Wilkie Bard. This is the sort of fact that at one hound lifts Palmerston North into a different world category from any English or American town of its size. There are two golf links, at least. Bowling greens, tennis and croquet lawns, are in profusion. There seems he one in every second street and many of them are large enough to carry national tournaments.

There are many schools with swimming baths beautifully situated under ideal conditions. Be reminded that all these playing grounds, including the golf links, are within easy walking distance of the town and I want to emphasise the word “walking.” Foes are so low as to make the visitor gasp and, being of Scotch extraction, I want to point out that this low cost of recreation is one of the manifest advantages of life in our provincial centres. Palmerston North is a most important railway centre. As is so seldom stressed in this country, transport is most convenient, serviceable, agd efficient. You can lunch at Palmerston North and breakfast at Christchurch next day. Half a day’s journey takes one from Palmerston North to Wellington. Napier, New Plymouth or Te Kuiti. You can get a telegram on the train from Auckland and change your destination from Dunedin to New Plymouth with only a delay of an hour or so.

As the roads are paved in every direction, motor travelling is luxurious and easy. The Awapuni racecourse is a surprise. Commodious grandstands, fine gardens and an array of old and noble English trees, make it a racegoer’s paradise Its classic races have attracted horses whose names are known the world over. The track is oval and well turfed and the lawns superb. Within a few miles each way from Palmerston North, too. are the splendid Feilding and Woodville courses, and Mart-on, where we had the felicity of watching a ]loyal horseman taking his place in a Bracelet field. Within half an hour, there are also the good little courses of Ashhurst, Bulls, Eoxton and Levin.

It would ho unforgivable to omit the palatial grounds and buildings of the Manawatu A. and P. Association, one of the greatest institutions of the Dominion. The Manawatu Show, 'in its entry figures, its standard of exhibits, its contribution to the progress ot farming science and general knowledge is of world importance. In the classes of sheep and cattle suitable to the Dominion, it is safe to assert that nowwliere on earth are ever gathered for show purposes, the number of quality exhibits ranged here. This short article cannot pretend to be an encyclopedia of the town of Palmerston North. Local enthusiasts are welcome to point out the very important items 1 have missed, including the aerodrome. I simply repeat that Palmerston North has no peer,as a country town, in the civilised world. This large statement is made soberly, and with , only the one proviso; if Palmerston I North has any rival peers, they exist ! only in New Zealand. There is, after all, nothing miraculous about the statement. The achievement of New Zealand is manifestly only the logical result of the original colonisation system of this “Britain of the South.” It was unique in history. It was planned from the beginning carefully, thoroughly and systematically. The settlers were hand-picked. Thev came here voluntarily to seek their I

; fortunes in a new land offering op-_. portunity to the adventurous and dreamer of high dreams. There shouldg have been no one among them who did & not- come from the boldest and the ft best spirits of his particular locality ~, At any rate, scientific methods of $ selection, organised supervision and every device of the best brains in Eng- .. land were employed to ensure that 61 There were sporadic infusions of other nationalities, but they confined themselves happily to Nordic . races, particularly the fine array of P lO from Norway, Sweden and notably Denmark. . , • These select folk had a land on which to work their will and realise i their dreams, which, of all the eattiis i surface, was the nearest in conngura- ; tion, climate, and the nature or its soil, to the Britain they had left. In the warmer and more plentiful sunshine and the milder air, everytiling grew a little bigger and better, that was all. ... J-.\ Palmerston North, then, is simply one facet of a British task,, faithfully carried, out on the best lines of the splended visions of the founders of New Zealand.