Auckland's Future.

Progress, Volume XVII, Issue 4, 1 December 1921, Page 85

Auckland's Future.

The future of New Zealand generally, and Auckland in particular, were referred to by the Hon. A. M. Myers at the civic farewell tendered to him at the Town Hall last month. Mr. Myers said he had thought of the time when Auckland would be quoted across the world as an example in townplanning, in beauty and utility of street development, in riobikty of architecture, in facilities tor education, sport and recreation, and in general reputation for true progress. In his opinion, the city was already on the way to this pinnacle. Every citizen of Auckland should be eager and proud to contribute his and her quota of effort and sacrifice towards making it "the city beautiful"—well ordered and spacious, healthy, happy, and rich in everything that makes for the permanent welfare of the whole community. No other city in New Zealand—or perhaps in the world—lent itself more to the ideal of the true Garden City. No delay should take place in putting into operation a well-considered policy tor the future development of the city and its environs; he suggested somewhat on the lines brought forward by him at the town-planning conference of 1911, and elaborated by the present Mayor and City Engineer. Auckland should not neglect to obtain from the Government the Orakei site, which offered ideal facilities for the building of a model town. The consideration and adoption of a scientific scheme of town development at the present time would obviate many of the costly mistakes made by the cities of the Old World. Naturally, said Mr. Myers, the development of Auckland itself was contingent upon the uninterrupted prosperity of the whole of this grand little country. Students of finance and economics generally welcomed the Government's expressed determination to reduce expenditure, and to render increasing sums of money available for the prosecution of the great settlement and developmental schemes awaiting attention in New Zealand. Potentially wealthy in natural resources of every description, and furthermore actually richer than any other country in the world in sources of hydro-

electric power, all that New Zealand needed now, to enter upon an era of unexampled prosperity was a policy of economy and hard work and the resumption of fair prices for her staple products, coupled with a period of industrial peace and goodwill. Particularly in New Zealand, where there was the nearest approach in existence to an equitable distribution of the products of industry, every unit of society should be amicably inclined to the knitting of the national effort to increase production and to maintain a high standard of industrial efficiency.

" Our sacrifices as a nation in the cause of freedom," said Mr. Myers, 'have brought to us equality of status with the foremost peoples of the earth.