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New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5788, 5 June 1880, Page 4

We do not suppose there is a second opinion as to the propriety and the necessity of planting and otherwise beautifying the intended park on our city hill—laying it out in the manner suitable for a park. We do not believe that there is anybody with common intelligence, or even the most limited modicum of ordinary taste, who considers on reflection that anything else ought to be done with it. While the site is such a magnificent one, the area available is so small that there is no alternative bat either having it a planted park or with the aspect which it now presents as a bare common. It must be the one thing or the other, for we cannot make two bites of a cherry. If you should say " the snn shines," or " water runs," and if anybody should say " no,'' it would not by any means convince us of a second opinion on that subject either.

"The times are changed and wo are changed with them." As the . ancient philosopher said, the community is like tho individual unit, and while growing. in stature grows also in wants, tastes, cares of all sorts. Put a thing into an infant's hand, and he immediately carries it to his mouth, and the pioneers of colonisation are in no condition to consider anything beyond the primitive, hard, material necessities. They land— as they landed here—on a savage shore, to live in jeopardy for long among fierce j aboriginal tribes, and to struggle with I nature in the wilderness. They did their work in New Zealand well. They sowed the acorn of the wood rising oak, they laid the foundation of the future nation. But in that early stage, engaged in that arduous task, what leisure . had they to bestow on what Goethe defines as " the beautiful in comparison with the materially useful." They had other things to think of besides the graces and the muses. But times change, and here the times have changed and the place too. The scattered handfuls of Bettlers. have multiplied, and knit into a colony which has been well described as " a nation in the. gristle." Auckland is no longer a bush township, Kut a. oity «£ no unimportant, standing already, and with prospects which well justify an ambitious spirit, and call forth a wise and active attention to the reaningand elevating requirements of civilised life. Mancannotcontinuetolive by bread alone. He possesses such a thing as a soul as well as a body, and as soon as growth and opportunity admit, ha proceeds to cater for the wants of the mind, and to satisfy the humanising tastes and sentiments. Ho provides enlarged means of education, intellectual and physical ; he forms scientific and literary institutions ; he creates libraries and galleries of art; and he beautifies his surroundings.

It used to be charged against new countries that they are too long monopolised by merely material cares—that the tandency to neglect aught else remains with them long after the necessity has gone by. Thirty yearn ago John Stuart Mill directed his powerful sarcasm against America as typical in this way:—"The United States have the six points of the Charter and no poverty, and all that these advantages do for them is, that the life of the whole of one sex is devoted to dollar-hunting, and of the other to breeding dollar-hunters." But if that accusation were deserved then, it is not true any longer—neither of the United States nor of the principal colonies. Indeed, at the present day a very characteristic fact in new countries is the liberality, not only on the part of the public, but of private persons, with which learning and taste, the intellectual and the beautiful, are looked after and provided for. It is conspicuous in the United States. Here the principal colonies have now each its university ; and look at the great bequest made by a colonist just deceased to the Sydney one, and the nobis grant presented a few years ago to the Melbourne one by another colonist still living. The latter city has endowed a library, now of more than a hundred thousand volumes, and which, both iu the splendour of the edifice, and the collection of books, can compare with that of a European metropolis. Most colonial capitals have their various scientific institutions and collections of art. Auckland possesses such things, and we owe to the generosity of two of our citizens the excellent commencement of a gallery of sculpture and the school for art instruction which now exists here. As for public parks and pleasure grounds, they are regarded as simply indispensable features of colonial cities. In the United States the munificence which is exhibited in establishing and adorning them certainly does not savour . of tho spirit once denounced by Stuart Mill. The City of New York, having been neglected in this matter-by the obtuseneas of past generations, and not being possessed of such reserves in good time, has in our day remedied the defect at a colossal expense like that of the great river embaukment in London, or the magnificent boulevard making in Paris. According to the local journals, there has been an outlay of more than fifteen milliuns of dollars, or about £3,000,000 sterling, in clearing space for the Great Central Park and then laying out and embellishing it. Americans have been always, and justly, proud of the grandeur of Nature's proportions on their continent, and it is related that when an Italian was talking of "Vesuvius a Yankee replied, " There is a waterfall at our side which would putitout in fiveminutes." But nevertheless much had uot been done to let Niagara be seen to right advantage, by keeping the surroundings in their natural order. Where solitude and the primeval forest ought to have been left, hotels were built, and the genius loci was driven to bay. Lord Duflerin, when Governor of Canada, after visiting the great cataract, suggested the desirability of having the approaches and whole neighbourhood in more appropriate keeping with this noble work of nature, and proposed that a great forest park should be formed at each side by the joint action of the Canadian and New York authorities. The Governor of New York State heartily embraced the idea, and we see by lato American papers that arrangements ar ® now in progress to have the gem reset;-and'■ have Niagara - once more'engirdled m its old sylvian style. In a

word, it is observable in, a' multitude of •ways how intellectual activity and good taste, the harmonious fitness of . things, have become more and more characteristic of new countries, and are no longer the-special property, of the old headquarters of civilisation.

It is a reasonable wish to see what remains to us of our Auckland plateau converted into a park for the benefit' of the citizens, and planted and embellished in the lr nmer appropriate to a park.. As to the particular modes of doing this, it is a matte-' of good taste, which we consider is perfectly safe in the hands of the municipal authorities presided over by our present Mayor. That the youth of the city and suburbs now desire the place for a cricket ground we do notbelieve. If thearea admitted of partition it would be another thing, and they have just as clear a sense of the case as their elders. We set a high value on those athletic exercises, and the ground at present allotted for the purpose is not enough. Further provision would be well where it would not interfere with more pressing and larger interests. As for this hill, it is a rare charm in the centre of a town. Many of us will remember certain cities in our fatherland famous for their picturesqueness, and which owe it entirely to some overhanging eminence. Travellers in Greece tell us that nothing is more striking in that classic land than the exceeding beauty of the situation' of many- of the ancient cities —nearly all now in ruins—but so many of which, like Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Messene, and Argos, have each an acropolis, or "city hill;" for though the glory of man has departed, the impressive face of Nature does not change. Our Auckland eminence has not the altitude of those we have mentioned ; but, in being a'bit of tableland instead of a lofty hill, it offers the signal advantage of being easily converted iuto a' peculiarly beautiful pleasure ground for the service of a city which is spreading so fast.