CORRESPONDENCE. WHAT HOKITIKA WANTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 December 1920, Page 1

CORRESPONDENCE.

WHAT HOKITIKA WANTS.

(To tho Editor.) Sir, —If anything worth while* is to be obtained it is not likely to be obtained unless agitated for. So now tlie ball has been started, I-for one would like to give it a bit of a push. When I landed here in Hokitika about 11 months ago, I thought, it was a town that could be made to look very attractive, and so take the eye of residents and visitors,—especially visitors. For first impressions go a very long way. A town like yours, with a rival like Greyniouth so close to it, should bo worked to the fullest. You have far more scope for beautifying here than they have in Greyniouth, so you should agitate and stir your people up to working point, and then keep them going. By so doing you would cause

an interest in your town and it would be more attractive for people to coma to stay here. It is no use waiting, as I have so often heard people say, for the Otira. tunnel to bo opened before doing something for yourselves. Tlio Otira tunnel will not help this town unless the people who live hero get to work and help themselves. on c thing Hokitika needs (although not often perhaps) is a water cart. On Tuesday and Wednesday last, with the traffic- to and front the racecourse the dust was awful and would not -bo tolerated by many towns outside Hokitika. A cheap kind of water-cart would be a square iron tank, with tap and perforated pipe in an ordinary cart. This tank could be removed when not wanted and the cart made available for other uses, and the people would be able to go to the races or elsewhere, Where the attraction was without getting covered with dust. Then Cass SjquaAe, a place worthy of attention, could do with a- band rotunda. The proprietors of timber mills around Hokitika would, I believe, give the tember to build a band rotunda, free ft would pay them io give, it, because lit would help to beautify the town I which belongs to them, and induce I people to live here. Then again Cass Square could do with a gas ring on which parties could boil water, - also some swings could be (jj/ected for the children to swing on and a sea-saw or two could be provided with very little j cost. Then the grounds eoukl he beai;j tifuily laid out in, garden and walks. I Volunteer labour could be called for to do this work and I believe a good response would he the result. I for one, would lend a hand to fix things up. Then, every here and there one sees rubbish dumped out on the streets of Hokitika and left there. What otlu)r town the size of this one, would allow ! that to be done. It would pay the I business people of Hokitika to contribute a sum between them for improvements in their town, for those improvements would , attract visitors and (he visitors would spend money at the shops, and the shopkeepers woidd get a good return from their outlay. Another thing needed very badly in Hokitika is public lavatories, and some one to keep them clean. T would suggest penny in the slot ones and they would pay for themselves in the long .run as ( well as being a great convenience to the public who are so poorly catered for in that respect. Now sir, thanking you for the space in your valuable paper and wishing you and staff a Happy New Year. I will not draw on any more of your space.— I am etc., W. CARTER. Sale Street, Hokitika, December 31st.