CLAIMS OF TE AROHA

Te Aroha News, Volume XI, Issue 1731, 17 April 1895, Page 2

CLAIMS OF TE AROHA

Since my return to my headquarters in Auckland, on •Thursday evening last, I have been astonished to fiud how little is known about the charms of Te Aroha, and the advantages which are concentrated in the Domain. A gentleman said to me on Good Friday “ T’is - a pity there are .so few, and such Hotels there, thousands of people would go there for the baths, but there is no decent-accommodation for them.” My friend was astounded when he learned—as he very soon did—what had been my experience in your beautiful township during the term of my recent visit; and more especially when informed that although I have stayed in some of the best houses in the United States of America, as well as in the best hotels in these colonies, I have nowhere found greater comfort than is afforded to guests in the well conducted establishments in your town. I did not of course pretend that the. caravanserais were as large as the Palmer House or The Pacific in Chicago, but I spoke of your Hotels as frouiniy own experience and observation I found them to be conducted for the comfort of the travelling public, who seek the nearest approaches to homo life in the accommodation placed at their disposal by Bouifiaee and his aids. The reason for this memorandum lies in my appreciation of the fact, that the large numbers of your people are perhaps inclined to assume that everybody knows as much about To Aroha as they know themselves, "when in reality the world knows nothing of anything, or place, or person, except that which is drummed into its ears every niorning; The Railway Companies in the United States are uover tired of publishing pictures, and descriptions in elegant poetry and prose, of the beauty spots on their lines of travel, and they send their agents far afield to .talk up their attractions, as well as to spread abroad their advertisements in permanent form. Te Aroha is a beauty spot in itself. It will soon bo ou the line of railway to tiavel from the Thames at Paeroa, as well as from Auckland, and it will be largely the fault of your own tradespeople, and hotelkeepers, if they don’t keep the travelling world advised as to the attractions that your beautiful locality is offering with lavish hands to those who are seeking pleasure as well as to those who seek health, in their rushings to and fro among the most lovely spots that nature has treasured up. In my travels and work I shall not forget my own pleasant experiences in To Aroha, but one man can do little, and ir is the duty of even” i erson to do his (l voir , so that a lovelimss so perfect as your mountain offers may be wideyknnvn. C. E. Jones.