The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1935. HUTT AND PETONE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 107, 30 January 1935, Page 8

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1935. HUTT AND PETONE

The Mayor of Petone is to be complimented on his fair and reasoned statement of the case for the amalgamation of his borough with Lower Hutt. It raised the question above parochial considerations and placed it in the larger perspective of the Hutt \ alley s interests as a whole. Had the councillors approached it m the same spirit instead of allowing themselves to be swayed, as they.obviously were.’bv parochial feeling, it is probable that the question would have been referred to the electors at an early date instead of being shelved. There are two factors which seem to influence local opinion on the subject. One is material, the other psychological. On the materia side the advantages of amalgamation appear to be overwhelming.. Tor one thing it would resolve three, possibly four, local authorities m the Hutt Valley—the Hutt and Petone Borough Councils, the Hutt ano Petone Gas' Lighting Board,- and maybe the Hutt River Board—into one, with a resultant substantial saving in administrative expenditure. It would make possible the planning of large-scale schemes for the development of that important city of the future which the Hutt Valley is destined to possess, and the growth and consolidated govern ment'of which is inevitable. . .... All these points were stressed by Mr. Scholefield in his admuable presentation of the case. That arguments so fortified by plain common sense should have failed to convince the councillors suggests that there must be some explanation for their opposition. There was nothing in the reasons advanced by them which, placed, alongside the Mayor s arguments, could be described as valid objection. It was a case of vision versus Little Pedlington, and Little Pedlington won. Here, it would seem, the psychological was the determining factor. Those who remember the Hutt Valley as it was when the Lower Hutt and Petone boroughs l were separated by an expanse of low-lying paddocks may also recall that each of these communities had widely different points of view. As settlement developed, until now it is impossible for a stranger to be able to see where Petone stops and Lower Hutt begins, the former acquired the character and outlook of an industrial community and the latter that of a residential area with small farms here and there as remembrancers of the days when it was given, over almost entirely to agriculture.. Hence the problem of amalgamation is not only a material question, but a question also of reconciling and harmonising two. different communal mentalities, each with its peculiar traditions, prejudices, aspirations and outlook. The experience of the development of Greater Wellington shows that communities widely different in character, and environment can with advantage to each and all be brought within the circle of mutual interest. Without such co-operation, large-scale schemes of beiiefit to the community as a whole would be impossible. It is from that angle, therefore, that the question of amalgamation in the Hutt Valley should be approached.