ADVANCE NELSON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 13 June 1936, Page 12

ADVANCE NELSON

(To The Editor) Sir, —It must be very encouraging to the conveners of the recent meeting to consider ways and means for the proper advancement of Nelson to note the various letters from your correspondents evidencing the very lively interest which has been aroused. This coming from a community which has been decidedly apathetic in the past towards any matter of general interest is wonderful and I sincerely hope that, as time goes on, we may see each public meeting convened in connection with the movement definitely larger than its predecessors. It must be a long and uphill fight because of the very nature of it but if the enthusiasm is maintained then the time will come when we will see the City Council, the Harbour Board, the Progress League, and the Tahunanui Town Board all putting their weight behind the movement.

It would be a matter of the greatest regret were this movement to be hindered in its early stages by any decision, such as suggested by one of your correspondents, to aim to make Nelson a garden city, an industrial centre, a scenic reserve, or a sportsman’s paradise. Make it a city in which we take a pride and pleasure, a city really worth while belonging to. Plan broadly with this definite object in view and if we succeed with ourselves we can rest assured our friends from the back country will be attracted and the those from larger centres. Fqr an example there is no need to go so far abroad as Brighton since we have one in our own Island, Timaru. The citizens of that town had only a beach to start with and, now, as the result of their efforts, Caroline Bay is one of the most popular holiday resorts in the whole of the South Island. It is packed throughout the whole holiday season. What they did Nelson can do. At this stage it is little or no good complaining about the cost of living here. Naturally if we wish to have any reduction we must have more residents to share the costs of modern conveniences since the more there are to bear it the less the individual cost. The time is rapidly approaching when we will have proper water supply and, we hope, when one of the proposed hydro-electric power schemes will come to fruition and then just watch Nelson go ahead. If industries want to develop and demands come for factories then welcome them remembering always that Cadbury’s and Lever Brothers, to mention just two out of countless ones, have proved that factoiies and gardens are not by any moans enemies, nor need factories be unsightly. Every factory or industry commenced here means so many more openings right at our door for the employment of our youth, for the keeping together of the home circle. The happiness of any community must be founded on the individual happiness of the homes constituting that community.—l am, etc., _ T , H.R.R. Nelson, 11th June.