DISMAL CANBERRA

Hokitika Guardian, 5 February 1932, Page 2

DISMAL CANBERRA

MR WINSOR IN HUMOROUS VEIN CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 4. Canberra, the capital of Australia has a railway station which looks like lynvee, in spite of £15,000,000 having been spent on the city, declared Mr \V. H. Winsor, amid laughter, at a meeting of the C'anterbuiy Builders’ Association, Mr Winsor gave an entertaining address on his observations while in Australia arranging for the visit of the South African cricketers to New Zealand. “Canberra was built on a bare and undulating block of country studded' with bluegum stumps,” stated Mr Winsor. “The only difference I noticed in the place since I was there four years ago was the growth of the trees, the amount of water required for which must be enormous. In another fifty years the trees will make it a beautiful place for the 80,000 odd Cival servants, and caterers who have to keep them going. It must be an unsatisfactory place for any Civil Servant to spend his lifetime in. There is only one picture show, and there is a Presbyterian Church as big as Christchurch Cathedral. No building is going on there. PRIME MINISTER’S RESIDENCE “Four years ago typists and junior clerks were arriving there at the rate of about fifty a week, and the same number were leaving weekly because they could not stand the dismal evenings after the gaiety of Melbourne. It looks as if Australia made an awful blunder in building that city. “The Prime Minister’s residence cost about £45,000, and I was told that Mr Bruce, who was in power when it was being built, (lid not like living in it because it was not good enough, I had the opportunity of bowing to Mr Scullin on the railway station as he was on his way to resign. Mr Scullin lived at the Hotel Canberra, as the palatial Ministerial residence was too big for him. Mr Lyons, however, is the proud possessor of ten children, and all will be able to live in the mansion. / "SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE Mr Winsor said that when entering Sydney Harbour, “Our Bridge” struck one from a distance as being a huge Meccano set. It appeared a very light and airy structure, with its span of about 1650 feet and the carriageway as high above the water as the Christchurch Cathedral. On coming nearer one? was impressed with this most magnificient structure. Each of the huge beams had a ’27,000-ton thrust without the traffic load on! the bridge. It was a most remarkable piece of engineering. “This bridge is worth going to Sydney to see,” declared Mr Winsor. “The people are just realising what a wonderful bridge.it is. They are also just beginning to realise that they have to pay for it. The estimate was £o,000,000 but the cost has risen to over £8,000,000 up till June. Sydney people are getting tired of looking at that bridge. “'inere were only two or three building jobs of any magnitude going on in Sydney.. In one excavation job there were fourteen architects at pick and shovel work. A huge building containing 300 suites of offices hacl only thirty occupied. Melbourne is far busier than Sydney—five or six times as much. “I was glad to get back to New Zealand, away from the mosquitoes and ants. In Melbourne and Sydney the temperature in the shade was never under 95 degrees.”