The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2220, 25 October 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1907.

A LESSON FROM THE SHOAV. At the very excellent smoke concert arranged by the Far,mens' Club on Tuesday night visitors were highly eulogistic of the district surrounding this town, and one and all declared it to he unsurpassed in any part of the Dominion. Later on Air. J. AA T . Bright graphically showed the pastoral progress of the district by quoting some very pertinent figures on the subject, and added that- Poverty Bay was known from the North Cape to the Blulf as one nf the'**most- prosperous districts in the* Dominion. TJrat may he the ease i;t> far as the mercantile classes is concerned, and also with regard to a percentage of fanners, but it is far from being applicable to the hulk of the people iu New Zealand. The compliments of visitors are very acceptable, hut there is nothing to he gained by living in a fool's paradise, and the hard fact remains that little is known of Gisborne and its people outside of Poverty Bay, the Hay of Plenty, and Ha wife’s Bay. At the smoke concert referred to several speakers took up the theme which was introduced in these columns recently, namely, that there is urgent need for a substantial! increase in the population of this coiiutry. AYliat is true of the Dominion as a whole is eminently true of Gisborne. Here we have a district that for fertility and climatic advantages can scarcely he surpassed in any part of the world, yet the facts are not made known even to residents in other parts of the Dominion, to say nothing of those more distant. AVo want population very badly, and in this respect to excuse our backwardness by blanu-ing our isolation is simply to confound cause and effect. AVe are likely to remain isolated, that Js .in respect of railway communication, until our numbers are very much larger than they are at present. When, the Noitli Island main trunk m.ilwa.v is finished there will he a great rush of applicants from all parts of the Dominion for the expenditure of public money on railways. In that event the advocates for the extension of lines connecting with (fishorne will be able to advance claims for consideration certuiuiy as great as those from any other section. The Government of the day will he at its wits’ end to know which applications to grant and which to refuse, and finally the matter will come down, not to the counting of fertile acres likely to he ■■indued up by the construction of the proposed railways, but to the counting of votes in the respective districts. In other words, the application which is only hacked by a siHill population is unlikely to receive favorable consideration, however legitimate it may lie. To gain

tlio imputation which is necessary to make Gisborne take tlie important place it should occupy, some definite steps should be taken to make out? ibler.s acquainted with the position as it occurred to our recent visitors. Possibly .the best ineit'hod ofuehieving this result is by the formation of a Citizens' League, which would take up the work of advertising the town and district. There are many wavs in which this could be done, and possibly the most effective and economical is by the dissemination of suitable literature. A liberal use might be made of the vary fine il-j lustrated newspaper;? of the Demin- : ion. A few months age the “Week- j ly Press” of Christchurch published j as an item of general interest a Gi;s-r| borne number, containing a capita? series of pictures representing flit 1 district. Such a League as we liavh suggested won I<l have little difficulty iu inducing all the other week-

lies to publish similar issues. Australian journals would almost certainly publish some views of the town, with a suitable article describing the resources of the district, ami it is quite likely that some of the leading English and American journals could lie successfully approached on the same matter. There is no getting away irom the fact tint advertising has come to be just as necessary nowadays to the progress of a young community as it is in the business of a private lmn. Canada is rapidly becoming a great nation through a thorough application of this principle, the Commonwealth is giving it more attention than ever, and our own Dominion spends a certain amount annually in the same direction. Apart from national action there are hundreds of towns in Canada ami the United States Which have Citizens’ Leagues devoted to the attainment ol increased population, and the movement is .spreading to this countiy. The people of Christchurch have just formed a Canterbury Advancement Association, a similar organisation in being formed in Tim’tru, Nelson citizens do excellent work of a tcunpoiar.v nature in organising annual cainivals that fast through a week, and our neighbors in Napier are this year following the Nelson lead. Ihe obvious query is: AVhat are we going to do iu Gisborne P 11 our residents are satisfied to lag iu the rear wliilo others are working for advancement, our much deplored isolation will probably continue. The constant habit of calling upon the ■Cloverumen,b for this tiling and the other will avail us little unless we aro ablo to back up the application by facts that show we are, making the utmost of the unrivalled natural advantages of Poverty Bay. A body of the kind suggested would in no way conflict with existing organa sa Hoars in tho town, such ins Railway Leagues, Chambers of Commerce, A. and I’. Associations, etc. All these hnvo definite lines of work, hut the new association would be largely an advertising organisation, co-operating with the others when necessary. As a name the “Gisborne 10,000 League” might not ho inappropriate, indicating that the members were bunded together with tho avowed object of raising the population ot tho town to the n,umber mention ml. One has only to consider the many advantages that would accrue as the result of such a substantial influx of people to realise that a League devoted to tint object could claim the active support of every merchant, every shopkeeper, every citizen in the town.