Looking Backward.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43386, 12 November 1908, Page 3

Looking Backward.

There is no doubt that our town is on the eve of a more definite advance. The iocrease in accommodation for the touring public in the form of building alreadp completed, and still going on the handsome new bank, the improvement in the business houses, together with the erection of .a new and commodious railway station, and the building of the much needed traffic bridge, all indicate the fact that Te Asoha is undergoing a definite stage in her evolution toward commercial maturity, and toward greater repute even than she has enjoyed in the past as a tourist resort. It has been an undoubted advantage to our pretty town that the Government ever saw fit to take over and develop the springs, and bring under cultivation the surrounding grounds, which, especially at the opening of the tourist season, present such an aspect of quiet and restful sweetness and gay colour.' For the borough -with all the requiremeLts of a thriving town to satisfy, with the lighting, sanitation, paving, and

reservioring Of the community to attend to, cannot in the nature of things be equal to carrying any further financial burden. That the staff of the

Domain under the head gardener, Mr Dalton, have successfully devoted their energies to reducing a recalcitrant piece of ground to fertility, and transforming barren sulphur patches into the loveliness of blooming rockeries, and the hard soil into gorgeous flower beds, is a fact which delights the tourist and wins for the town a reputation in its Domain. The courtesy also of the ladies employed in the ticket office and the attention shown to visitors by those in charge of the bath houses, all these are tqings which greatly promote the reputation of Te Aroha as a health resort, and prove that the Tourist Department has exercised good judgment in carrying on its scheme for the development of our tourist resources. But there is an aspect of the tourist traffic in its relation to the progress and well-being of Te Aroho, which lies wholly within the scope of the residents themselves to consider. It has to be remembered that by the fact of a great nart of our population being always on the wing, that is to say being merely visitors, and spending practically nothing here beyond a few pounds on souvenirs and the like, we lose that steady influx of capital into the tills of our storekeepers which would naturally come to them from established residents.

It requires to be pointed out that if the - accommodation houses could sfe their way to deal more with the storekeepers of the town this waut would be very largely made up for. There is unfortunately a continuous and copious leakage of capital from Te Aroha owing to the practice of accommodation house proprietors buying so largely away from the town, and it is a thousand pities that this should be so. Asa town we require to expend here the money which comes to us from our tourist traffic, or else the benefits of that traffic pr.- ctically end with those who entertain the tourists, instead os the whole town being taken into partnership in the catering business. This fact we believe if only clearly pointed out will be recognized by those in a position to alter the situation, in the direction of assisting to distribute the benefits of the tourist traffic throughout the entire community. In addition to the consideration Of exploiting our tourist trhffic to its fullest scope, and conserving so far as possible the capital flowing from that tratfi, we have to remember that we are, C owing to the growth of the borough, on *' the verge of a situation with regard to the sanitation or insanitation of the town. We are well aware that nothing is easier than adverse criticism, nothing cheaper than sitting on a rail hnd telling other people what to do without showing them pieoisely how-it can be done, and it is in a spirit very far removed from such an attitude as that of the rail sitter that we moot this question of the more perfect sanitation of our town. We trust we have the progress of Te Aroha at heart, and at the same time we submit that we are sufficiently informed upon matters affecting its interests and resources to realize that rated as we already are, the expense of inaugurating a satisfactory' and thoroughgoing scheme of sanitation would be to us a matter of some moment. This is one of the prime reasons why we urge that the whole town should be made partaker in the profits of the tourist traffic, for as things are at present, while the tourist population is of course made to contribute indirectly toward the rates, through the tariff at the accommodation houses, the proprietors of those houses together with the bus proprietors, are almost the only ones who have a chance to reimburse themselves for their share of the general expenditure. But there is yet another aspect of the finance of this question of sanitation, and that is the exploiting more fully our borough resources. The Borough Council Endowment for instance is already being clamoured for as a residential area, by residents and house agents anxious to erect homes there. The lease, uuhappily, has yet three years to run, but if when the new traffic bridge is completed, some six or nine months hence, the Borough Council could make some agreement with the present lessee and open up this promised land straight away, that source of revenue would be at once in our hands. The Government would come to our assistance as in past times, and the thing could be done.

(To be continued.)