MIRAMAR. What Wellington Has Missed.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 121, 25 October 1902, Page 8

MIRAMAR. What Wellington Has Missed.

THE public announcement, made this week, that 521 acres of Miramar, bought in March last for £26,000, have just been re-sold at £78,000, wakes up the memory with a start. Less than two years ago the whole of this splendid suburban estate, embracing 1500 acres of flats and slopes, wes under offer to the City Council for £75,000. And, the termswhy, they were gilt-edged. Just listten Purchase money not required for three years; in the meantime interest to be charged on £8000 at 4£ per cent., and on the other £67,000 at 2£ per cent., or, in short, a total payment of £2035 per annum ! • • • And the potentialities of the scheme were magnificent. It was suggested that 500 acres on the flat should be reserved for public recreation purposes, and that the rest of the flat, as well as the 1000 acres of hill slopes, should be cut up into residential areas, and either leased or sold. No wonder Mayor Bell strove hard to achieve this splendid heritage for the Wellington of the future. No reason to ask why Mayor Blair and Mayor Aittken espoused it so warmly. From its early youth the city had been growing up with confined lungs. Here was an opportunity to cure all childish neglects, and provide nobly for its mature development. * • • And, it could be won for less than nothing. The sale or leasing of 1000 acres would produce enough to pay the entire cost, and leave a handsome revenue over for transforming 500 acres into choice public recreation grounds. A generation hence won't the people of Wellington marvel at the folly, or stupidity, or whatever else it may have been, that prompted opposition to suoh a scheme, and baulked stuoh a high-mind-ed purpose ? To that precious entity, the Ratepayers' Association — pretentious name for a miserably small body — belong the distinction of denouncing it as undesirable. ♦ » • In one of their Tooley-street manifestoes, they declared they would oppose it in every possible way. That, of course, did it no harm. It was in the Parliament of 1901 that the enabling Bill was throttled, and the scheme died an unnatural death. For those who would know the methods, the records are available. At any rate, the press was whole-hearted in its support of the Miramar purchase. And, the Lanoi lent its full share of advocacy. As (Continued on page 21.)