PALMERSTON NORTH.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5267, 9 February 1878, Page 5 (Supplement)

PALMERSTON NORTH.

(FKCJt OUll OWN CUitRESPONDENT.) February 7, 1878. There have been numerous bush fires in this district lately, several of which have been of considerable extent; but I believe that most of them are accidental, as the usual burning-off season is in March. Banks are usually expected to be leading features in a town, and to be somewhat before the rest of the place as regards size aud architecture; but auyoue looking for a bank in Palmerston North with that idea, would he wofully disappointed. A stranger, standing in the centra of the square, has, if he wishes to find one, literally only oO look for the two smallest buildings in the place, aud in one he will discover the Bank of Australasia, and in the other the Bank of New Zealand. The former, which is the oldest established one in this town, has certainly a building of its own; but the building in question is a low onestoreyed edifice, which looks very dwarfed aud insignificant in comparison with the surrounding houses. It is, moreover, so small tha - . it only boasts of one bedroom for the accommodation of both the manager and clerk. The Bank of New Zealand, however, is still worse off. It rents half a small, low, one-storeyed addition to a tolerably large house; the other half of this addition being occupied by a bootmaker. There is only a thin wooden partition between these tenements, so that every word spoken in the bootmaker’s shop can be heard in the bauk, and vice versa. The whole premises occupied by the bank is, roughly speaking, about 15ft. square, and in this apace the manager is supposed to live aud sleep, as well as to keep, the counter, safe, books, desks, papers, &c., &c., and do his business. Surely, if it is worth while to open a bank here at all, it is worth while to buy a piece of land and put up a decent building, where at all events the books and papers can be kept in some sort of oedety and where any business done in it need not be known to tie whole town. Whatever good the abolition of the Provincial Councils may have done for other places, it certainly has done a considerable amount of harm to this district; in proof of which, my attention has been called to page 11 of the “Estimate of outlay for the province of Wellington during the year oommeuoing April 1, 1875, and ending March 31, 1876,’’ where it will be seen that the Provincial Council thought it necessary to grant £SOOO for the construction of roads from Palmerston to Fitzherhert, aud £3OOO for roads from Mungaroa to Waikanae. The former amount (of which not one penny has been spent) would have opened up a large suburban district of good land, and would have connected the two sides of the river (which are at present totally cut off from each other in spite of the £7OOO bridge, which is perfectly useless owing to there being no roads whatever on the Fitzherhert side). The latter amount would have gone some way towards opening up the proposed road from Wellington to Palmerston North, which is certainly greatly needed for many reasons. Had the Provincial Council remained in existence another twelve months, this town at all events would be much further advanced than it now is. While on this subject I may mention that there are no signs yet of the £2OO, granted last session for making the approaches to the Manawatu Bridge, being expended for that purpose. We have been now three months without any head schoolmaster here; the gentleman who was appointed having, I believe, been asked to remain at Tawa Plat. Surely we have some reason to complain of the long delay "in appointing a suitable person to till the post.