GREATER WELLINGTON?

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 1, 25 May 1928, Page 5

GREATER WELLINGTON?

Many years ago an English philosopher in the course of an eloquent passage pointed out that most people are wise in respect of events that are past for the simple reason that it is an easy matter correctly to see the past and to understand it when events have been I classified and presented in their proper sequence. Continuing, he said, that comparatively few people are wise in respect of their own times owing to the difficulty of estimating the nature and the direction of forces actually at work. The truths above expressed are applicable both to private and to public concerns. Notwithstanding difficulties, however, there are times in the affairs of men when it is necessary that the present should be grappled with in order that wise direction might be given to the future. With regard to the Hutt Valley we stand at such a point of time and there is to be settled the question whether the growth of the Hutt Valley is to be directed with due regard to the welfare of the whole Valley or whether growth is to remain undirected. i Not a few in the Valley are to-day I engrossed with the idea that the time has fully arrived when consideration should be given to the amalgamation of at least two boroughs, the Hutt Borough and the Petone Borough, or the Petone Borough and the Hutt Borough. Unity is strength, and there is surely sufficient community of interest between the two Boroughs to warrant earnest consideration of amalgamation. No doubt there are many who could and who would give good reasons why amalgamation should not take place, but what is required is real reasons. Good reasons do not always constitute real reasons, and if the matter under consideration be impartially enquired ■_ into many more, indeed, will be found who can give real reasons why amalgamation should take place. Many would certainly experience genuine pangs of regret if amalgamation should take place and such sufferers would not fail to evoke sympathy in each Borough. In each Borough there are no doubt many who have seen their Borough grow , from infancy to youth. Many doubtlessly have helped to foster this growth and at the moment view their expanded J Borough with a civic pride that compels admiration. j Loss of identity would mean a break in associations but at all times and in | all places a new skin is forming beneath the old. The old gives place to the new to something better, but no doubt the same glow of pride that swells up when contemplating the present will swell still more when contemplating the future, the future in which will "be a prosperous expanding Valley, a valley counting its numbers in tens of thousands, a valley to which each now separately existing borough will have laid graciously on the ALTAR OF PROGRESS its liberal offering. "Flesh of our flesh and bone of our ■bone," each will be able to say, "Child of our loins now no longer child, but man in his strength, in the full strength of a vigorous manhood." May no narrow considerations hinder the development in sight. In plain language it can safely be affirmed that it requires no high flight of imag;Tiation to envisage a united valley stretching from sea front far north, stretching east, stretching west, embracing all those elements making for buoyancy and prosperity, elements industrial, elements educational, elements recreational, elements social and fraternal—GßEATEß WELLINGTON.