The Chronicle LEVIN: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. PROGRESS OR STAGNATION?

Horowhenua Chronicle, 14 November 1916, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. PROGRESS OR STAGNATION?

The recently 'ascertained decrease in the population of Levin Borough is of a nature to justify sustained endeavor towards improvement, on tlie part of every citizen. Progress or retrogression await every community in every year; there is 110 actual state of standstill. though 11 yea'r or two's retrogression is needed before a community will admit the fact of its existence. A setback has been experienced by Levin. Ihe diminution in our papulation is a proof. It is true that a great many young men liavo left us. at the call of duty to the empire, hut judged on a purely statistical basis the natural increase should have been sufficient to counterbalance the losses through this cause. " Undoubtedly we have been through a time of semi-stagnation in, the last five years, and the probability is that there 'will bo no remedy until the leaders of the community move to apply one. When Levin roachod the ■first period of stagnation (in 1910) that tomes to all bush towns, a good deal was done towards bettering the state of things then experienced. The remedl'al action was due to the earnest and well-maintained work of a Progress Association instituted in that year. A similar society could do* equally helpful work to-day. The cffect of persistent endeavors 'in such spheres of helpfulness is well illustrated in the case of Pal-

merston North: a town that was set up on promises to pay, extended on a lavish system of promises to pay, and fipally established on a firm and enduring basis of business through the help of members "whose bright lexicon of youth heldt no such word as failure." The converse cf Palmerston's case is to be found in Ctago, where to-day there are fifty-year-old boroughs wherein the popi'.latims have dwindled to three or four hundred people. Built up on the earnings of gold-diggers, they "waited for something to tum tip" after the diggings "petered out." They are still waiting.