HASTINGS RESURGENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 79, 24 November 1931, Page 5

HASTINGS RESURGENT

CHALLENGE to fate CARNIVAL TO MARK RISE ABOVE GRIP OF CIRCUMSTANCE "BETTER TIMES ARE COMING" HASTINGS, Monday. As a sort of gesture of superiority to cireumstance, which has treated the town very badly this year, Hastings will hold a three days' carnival this week. There will be a school holiday on Wednesday, when special excursion trains will run from Napier and southern Hawke's Bay stations. Processions will be held every afternoon and evening, the streets will be deeorated and speeially lighted, and each afternoon and evening there will be a sports. The merry-making carnival will he the biggest thing of the kind ever attempted in this district. The whole business community is sharing in the organisation, and giving whole-heart-ed support." It was first conceived as a means of raising funds for the relief of disfcress among unemployed and the returned soldiers. Its first purpose has been forgotten in the general hope and belief that better times are ahead. The town is well advanced in the work of reconstruction, and along the principal streets blocks of shops and offices have gone up with surprising rapidity. Tenders for others are being let almost daily. In addition to nearly 200 temporary permits for buildings erected immediately after the earthquake, and representing about 350 shops and offices, 190 permits for permanent buildings have been issued since April 1. The expenditure represented is £144,698. Other large buildings soon to be begun inelu^de four banks, post office and Grand Hotel. As the chairman of the Retailers' Association has said, "What has been accomplished has been largely without assistance from the rehabilitation committee." The town is not yet out of the woodland the carnival is not being held in any spirit of jubilation over past events, but rather as an urge to slied past cares and tribulation and look forward with confidence to happiness and good business in the reconstructed town.