NEW PLYMOUTH REVISITED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 121, 31 August 1910, Page 7

NEW PLYMOUTH REVISITED.

A WELLINGTON!AX'S IMPRESSIONS 1 . (By Victor J. Croskery). A pleasant surprise awaited me last Eastertide when I paid: a visit to the town of New Plymouth, the capital of the provincial district of Taranaki. I had visited the charming little oceangirded coast township several times anterior to this but the last occasion was fully some six or seven years ago, and therefore to me that day as I walked along the main arterial street of the town I was astounded at the great progress that New Plymouth had made and also by the fact that some very progres-sive-looking structures had been erected where previously had stood more or less Uninteresting buildings long since out of I

date in such a growing and rapidly - I changing environment. It is indeed astonishing when one visits a place after several years' absence to note, as in this instance, what a metamorphosis has taken I place. The city of Wellington, where i the -writer lives, is generally admitted to ■ be a bustling centre, as indeed it is; and ' for this reason I think I have always ihad; rather a friendly feeling for the quiet and rest-fulness of New Plymouth. These latter qualities, I was given to understand, however, are not obtained toy the sacrifice of business activities and ■that commercial life which must exist in central town which is fed by surrounding tracts of dairy and other lands. And that, of course, it is needless to say, is the keystone of New Plymouth's prosperity. At the very outset I would be scarcely doing my duty were. I not to refer to your beautiful Pukekura Park—popularly and inartistieally and inappropriately termed "the Rec.," which is the recognised abbreviation, apparently, of Rccrea-1 tion Grounds, a name now very properly' discarded by a wise and paternal governing body, who saw in its and in New J Plymouth town great possibilities for future achievement. Naturally, when a stranger visits a place. '>e it simply a ; township or a new country altogether, he sums up an impression of it pretty quickly and smartly, and, generally speaking, to a keen observer the ideas he forms are very approximately correct, so to speak. On the other hand, a man might reside in Taranaki's capital for a quarter of a century and not see with that keen vision of the itinerant one some local defect requiring immediate remedy or a little matter which if then remedied or extirpated might prove eventually to save the town considerable trouble in its readjustment, etc., later on. However, these are more or less side issues, I suppose. I merely state ; them to help show that justification exists for the bringing of an outside mind to bear upon local matters, for criticism of non-residents generally has a salutary effect, as everybody knows. 'four township boasts some fine stretches of beach, too. And. Paritutu and the other sugar-loaves are a novel and unique sight to the stranger as he walks along in the precincts of the Breakwater, at time casting a roving and appreciative eye afar outward to where horizon and ocean meet miles beyond. When mentioning the Breakwater (or the "water-ibreak," as I have heard it designated), the mind naturally reverts to the great potentialities that exist in regard to the matter of oil, to say nothing of ironsand, both of which are found in such great quantities in this part of New Zealand. I 'believe thai. soma day oil will make one or two men in this fair land of ours millionaires, for from what I could hear and see (and I have taken move than a cursory, interest in the matter) the Taranaki country seems to be positively "saturated" with oil, and subterranean oilfields apparently abound everywhere, and only await man's guiding hand to yield up their rich and illimitable store to humanity.

The "olden day" aspect of New Plymouth also struck me very forcibly. I mean to ,say that your town has been the centTe of what is now historic effort, and in it men who are now well advanced in years spent their eventfi|! younger days and shouldered their rifles in troublous times at duty's call. Many of these pioneers may still be met with in the flesh, enjoying a well-earned rest, though, sad to relate, the major portion of them sleep the long deep sleep of death in Te Henui cemetery or St. Mqry's churchyard, where "the rattle 6f the drum and the volley of the gun" disturb them not. And it is surely soothing to think, as one sits in the beautiful Puke'kura Park, amid leafy bowers from [ which Mt. Egmont's snow-capped peak | may be seen in the distance (ever ready, as it were, to give a friendly greeting to the visitor to Taranaki), I say that it is surely, pleasant to be able to realise that after their grim tussle with, the natives peace has at last fallen on the I land, uniting for ever the sons of mun, | white and brown, and that now these , grand old men of Taranaki may sleep 1 the eternal sleep and take their well- . earned respite 'midst surrounding smilI ing homesteads, created as the result of 1 their own pioneering work, amid war's I alarm, in the long, long ago. But 1 digress.

A walk from end to end of Devon street, which is the main highway of New Plymouth, reveals glimpses of some really splendid buildings and most in-, viting-looking domiciles, the residences 1 of .those whose work requires that they reside near the town. Out of the town itself there are some really beautiful country ihomes, where among a shrine of trees the more prosperous business man lives, and 'keeps the traditional cow and hens for domestic wants. Since the six or seven years when I was last in New Plymouth many new and fine-looking buildings have sprung up to grace the scene, but in the side parts of the town there are, of course, one or two ramshackle shanties. One most curiouslooking building, I particularly remember, reminded nie mosit insistently of a collection of ancient fowlhouses jumbled one on top of the other. I believe it did duty for a blacksmith's shop, if I re--1 member rightly, but whatever its present use, I could not help being . amused at this quaint juxtaposition of the old and the new.

I have been in every big town of note in the Dominion, including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin, but give to the town of New Plymouth the palm as regards the subject of parks, your own P.nkekura ibeing far and away second to none. And it is wonderful also how the work of man has added to the natural beauties of this lovely spot. A master hand, surely, lias tended it and miade it what it is—nulli secundUs! To sit in this Garden of Eden on a bright, sunshiny, summer's day and view the flecked clouds passing overhead, with Mt. Egmont's snow-capped summit afar off, were surely the very quintessence of delight. Or so it always seemed to the writer, and he knows this to bo the sentiment of many another who has paid a visit to the cliief town of this Province of Fern Tree and Palm. I think, somehow (illustrating, perhaps, the old saw that it is usually only distant fields which look green), that the resident of New Plymouth does not so much appre ciate Pukekura Park as the visitor, who

i has ever a quick and appreciative eye for the artistic. Before writing "finis" to this discourse may I add that later on when the oil makes things commercial move somewhat more swiftly in New Plymouth than at present, I hope that the beautiful and idealistic, as represented by a lovely mountain, a charming seascape and shore, and, last but not least, incomparable Pukekura, may 11.0 be wholly forgotten in the wild and reath--1 ess scramble after the powerful a mighty dollar? A votre sante, New Plymouth, and your people!