The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1911. TE AWAMUTU—PROGRESSION.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 73, 29 December 1911, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1911. TE AWAMUTU—PROGRESSION.

BEFORE the publication of our next issue we will have entered upon another year, and 1911, with all its opportunities and possibilities —many availed of but more neglected —will have slipped away into the limbo of the past. Throughout the Dominion the year has been marked with signs of the greatest prosperity. Trade has been brisk, work and money have been plentiful, to the advantage of the business man and the worker. Prices and seasons have been good, and the farmer has benefitted. Go where we will it is hard to find any city or hamlet where the one outstanding feature is other than prosperity and in this respect Te Awamutu is not behind any other township of the Dominion. Te Awamutu has been named —and in all probability rightly so —"the garden of the Waikato." Its adjacent country, its glorious natural advantages, and its easy access give it every right to lay claim to the title which has been bestowed upon it. We have said that Te Awamutu lias many glorious natural advantages, and the most casual observer cannot fail to note that nature has most abundantly bestowed upon Te Awamutu all the material from which to build up a most solid and progressive town. For some reason these advantages had been dormant for Jycars, with the result that Te Awamutu lagged behind. But some few years ago Te Awamutu awakened to her responsibilities, realised her possibilities, and commenced to fight for her place as a businese centre. Never

in its history has Te Awamutu i made such headway as in the year just ending. This is evidenced by the number of residential and business premises which have been recently erected. In the main thoroughfare alone fully £IO,OOO has been expended upon massive brick and concrete structures, and other less enduring wooden buildings. Several of these are yet in the hands of the contractors, and when finished other works will immediately be taken in hand. The brick Post Office, now nearing completion, promises to give to Te Awamutu much-needed and more modern postal facilities. In no direction is the necessity for adequate accommodation more felt than in this quarter, and the officers controlling that department have not been slow to recognise the fastincreasing local requirements. Improvements and additions have been made at the Railway Station but it is very evident that the time is not far distant when an entirely new station will of necessity have to be provided. The Education Department has found it necessary to have extensive additions made, with the result that the accommodation at the public school has been almost doubled. With such extensive improvements to our public buildings within a short twelve months, who can gainsay that Te Awamutu has not progressed by lears and bounds. Private enterprise has been equally alive to its own interests. Between 30 and 40 dwellings have been erected. Every day fresh inquiries are being made for both residential and business accommodation, which undoubtedly means a most vigorous building programme for the ensuing year. The incoming year bids fair to be of eve.l greater prosperity than its very prosperous predecessor. During the year many changes have taken place in local institutions. The forming of the tennis, bowling, and croquet greens at Victoria Park has proved a great incentive to sport, and, thanks to the Puniu Domain Board, Te Awamutu can boast of a public play ground of which any much larger centre might be proud. The Chamber of Commerce, which has been formed during the year, has already proved its usefulness in many directions. It is to this source thanks primarily to Father Lynch and mainly to Mr Wm, Taylor —that Te Awamutu has become possessed of a town clock equal to the best in the Dominion. Coming nearer home it was in 1911 that the WAIPA POST had its birth. The ferroconcrete bridge at the Mangahoe is one of the many improvements to our main arterial roads. The district is rapidly being made more getatable, and we trust the incoming year will see a keen endeavour made to properly road and bridge all district roads, for it is to the farming industry that Te Awamutu —like every other inland business centre must look for her existence. The local authorities have, by the judicious expenditure of their very limited means, done all in their power to improve the town. For the incoming year we have, in addition to a most extensive building programme, something more than a prospect of lighting, water, and drainage schemes being carried out. These, together with the proposals for street improvements should give a considerable impetus to local trade and it is unquestionable that, notwithstanding the great progress of 1911, 1912 promises to do even greater things. At this the end of the old year and the beginning of the new we wish for our readers, our town, and our district a continuation of the good times that have been and that in the heart of every resident there may be an ever increasing desire to do something towards helping our town onwards and upwards to that position which may and eventually must be ours so that our review at the close of the coming year may be an even more pleasing duty than now. We wish and believe that 1912 will prove for all A Prosperous and Happy New Year.