BEAUTY AND RECREATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 770, 3 December 1886, Page 20

BEAUTY AND RECREATION.

TO THE EDITOR OE THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL.

Sib, —Why is it that Wellington is so singularly wanting among its governing powers in any activity in promoting healthy pursuits for the rising generation and in providing attractive retreats and resorts for the exercise and recreation of its older inhabitants and visitors ? The city press is always liberal in its support of all heilthy recreation —athletics and city improvements. Private enterprise was attempted much in these directions, but the powers that be seem deficient in the perception that it is as important to make the place attractive to visitors, and to provide healthy pursuits for its citizens, as to promote material wealth directly. The Botanical Gardens are becoming a wilderness from want of funds to keep them in order. Much of the Town Belt is rapidly developing into a worthless furze brake. Waterloo-quay, which was to form part of a grand promenade round the harbor, is allowed to become a quagmire by the body bound by Act to maintain it. The continuation of this quay, the magnificent road along the Manawatu Railway’s reclamation, is actually blocked by buildings, and so this splendid promenade, which should extend from Kaiwarra to the Post Office, is debarred from use by the apathy and neglect of the local bodies in charge. The fine road across Mount Victoria is allowed to become a mere cow path, and in wet weather is impassable. The road round the rocks to Kilbirnie, which used at one time to be an attractive drive, ha 3 been for a long period useless for carriages. The sea baths at Thorndon, a private enterprise, were once a source of healthy recreation and were remunerative to their owners, but the Government has smothered them on one side and the Railway Company on the other (in the business interests of the cby, of course), and the City Council assists by allowing the Tinakori stream to become a common sewer which discharges alongside. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Auckland has a delightful garden in its .midst, the Albert Park ; its City Council provides penny salt-water baths in the harbor and fresh water in the city ; its city reserves are well planted, and are delightful resorts ; its cricket ground is a model of beauty. Christchurch has its domains and reserves well planted and kept; its public gardens are admirable. The city has spent an enormous sum in its determination to keep the River Avon uncontaminated by sewage, and to have it healthy and suitable for boating and bathing. Dunedin has a good recreation ground within ten minutes’ walk of the city ; its town belt has good roads and paths about it, and it is a real ornament to the city; it has free sea baths where thousands bathe in summer. In Wellington these things are not only neglected, but they are opposed and injured. “ Thou shalt not recreate," is our eleventh commandment, “neither those nor the stranger which is within thy gates.” A number of citizens some time ago put their hands in their pockets and built a boatshed, a useful and attractive institution, from a sanitary and moral point of view. Our local governors bid them clear out, and move to a place the position of which is fatal to the project. Now i 3 this really necessary in the interests of the city as a whole? Many say not ; they say that the new reclamation is to be made in the interests of a small section of the city; that the enormous accommodation proposed cannot be utilised for years ; that the reclaimed area will be waste like other reclaimed s lands here, because the building areas available already are not likely to be adequately utilised for the next ten years ; while some of the best authorities are of opinion that this reclamation is positively injurious to the harbor. Mr J. E. FitzGerald some time back gave an eloquent discourse on athletics . and their moral and sanitary value to the city. “ His Worship the Mayor ” spoke fervently (ah, how easy it is to talk !) He did not, however, on a recent occasion give his casting vote in the manner his fervent speech made us think he would. But to continue, we do not get our sanitary moral and aesthetic welfare looked after, because we do not make these burning questions in the elections of our local representatives of all kinds. Our roads, drives, walks, drainage, recreation grounds, boating, baths, and athletics, are all essential to the welfare of our city, more so by far than the local

interests of any small part of the city. Oar arrangements for business and trade must be for the city as a whole, they must not be sacrificed to pleasure seekers; but they should not be our gods, and their promoters should not be let to ignore all other considerations. If we desire to give free scope to sanitation, recreation, and art of all kinds, those who are interested should join hands, the older for their drives, walks, and gardens, and the younger for their athletics, baths, and boating, and see that we get good all-round men as our representatives in all public bodies who will meet our wants. We must bestir ourselves and organise if we want these things; our representation is now too onesided. —I am, &c., November 27.