THE PARNELL PARK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15562, 20 March 1914, Page 6

THE PARNELL PARK.

The City Council's decision against letting the frontages of the Parnell park puts a clear issue before the electors. It can hardly be doubted that the city will be as willing to pay £15,000 for a nine and a-half acre park as £8000 for six acres, for Mr. Parr quite misrepresents the nature of the opposition to the proposal when he sets it down to a niggardly counting of the cost of open spaces. The Herald has always supported a liberal policy in the provision of parks for the people. It has not been suggested the \ city is unable to afford £15,000 for a park, but the question has been raised whether the money cannot be spent to better advantage than on the Gillies estate. Mr. Parr, in his public appeals on the subject, relies on the attractions of the beach as a certain vote-catcher. He refuses to look to the future, and ignores the pointwhich may not have been sufficiently emphasised— before many years are over a road and rf a railway must run in front of the beach to which he attaches so much value. With the increase of railway traffic the day must soon come when the railway authorities will decline to take heavy trains up the Remuera hill, and lower them down again to Penrose. An easy grade is available round the foreshore, across Hobson Bay, and thence through Green Lane. For years railway officials have discussed the advantages of this route, and though they have not yet been able to persuade any Minister to face the necessary expenditure, it is beyond question that an outlet in this direction must soon be found. The waterside road running eastward from Quay Street and directly connecting the city with the eastern suburbs is immediately in prospect. Looking at the park in view of these future works the electors will have little difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that Mr. Parr is placing an exaggerated value on the present approach to the beach, and is over-estimating the advantages which the citizens can derive in the future from the purchase of the Gillies estates. In discussing the Herald's proposal that whatever money is available for parks can be spent to the fullest advantage by improving the Domain, the Mayor has assured us that the Exhibition will yield an ample surplus for this purpose. If we take the most hopeful view of Exhibition finance we can hardly contemplate the Exhibition showing a profit of £10,000. Does Mr. Parr expect the citizens of Auckland to believe that this sum, if it could be realised from the Exhibition, is more than enough to effectively improve 200 acres of neglected park land? If the Exhibition surplus is to be considerable, as Mr. Parr anticipates, this only furnishes another reason why we should husband city resources, so that we can make the Domain a credit to the city and a lasting pleasure to its citizens. No part of the city is so much interested in this as Parnell. The Domain is Parnell's park as it is the city's park; every citizen of Greater Auckland is interested in its permanent improvement and it will be surprising if at the poll on Thursday next the ratepayers do not show unmistakably that they prefer this to the doubtful purchase of the nine and a-half acres comprising the Gillies estate.