# The Story of Christchurch, New Zealand/Chapter 23

Chapter XXIII.
And what of to-morrow?
We in New Zealand are still at the beginning of things. A world-wide movement of population is in progress; last century saw the stream setting strongly towards the United States and Canada, but when their great territories are filled up, it is certain that the overflow must be diverted to Australasia. The time may be even now at hand; while these lines are being written, men are already considering the problems which must follow the conclusion of peace—one of these problems is what is to be done for the millions of young men who have been uprooted from their civil employment to fight for their country. Already it is being suggested that, some of them should be assisted to make their homes in the distant parts of the Empire, and so help to strengthen its defence.
Let us pause a moment to consider what such an influx of population would mean to Christchurch and Canterbury. The population of the South Island of New Zealand, at the last census (1911), numbered 444,477. Yet the area of this island is almost 8,000 square miles greater than that of England, or almost exactly equal to the combined area of England and Wales. Put in another way, the South Island is carrying a population of eight persons to the square mile, as against 669 persons in England. A century ago England and Wales carried a population of over ten millions, who lived on the land, and did not need to import their foodstuffs; moreover, agriculture was primitive then, grain was sown broad​broadest, and reaped with the sickle. The poisonous fumes of industrial smoke had not yet drifted across the country, and agricultural machinery was still unthought of. Can we doubt that Canterbury can carry as dense a population as England did in the year of Waterloo?
Then it may be that Christchurch may become one of the great manufacturing and commercial cities of these Southern Seas. She possesses all the requirements for such a destiny—a temperate climate, with a greater average of recorded sunshine than falls to the lot of most cities; abundant water supply for purposes of power, and a pure artesian supply for drinking and domestic use; an unlimited extent of level country, lines of communication north and south, presently to be connected with the West Coast; a harbour safe in all weathers, and capable of extension to fit it to cope with the greater requirements of the future. Moreover, there lies behind the city a great agricultural and pastoral district, rich in raw material for the factory and workshop, and with the completion of the Midland Railway there may be opened up new fields of enterprise of which we can only guess. Who can tell what mineral resources may still be hidden in that region of great mountains and forest?
It may be that the installation of the Lake Coleridge water-power works will prove to have been the precursor of a new era of prosperity for the province, of a magnitude we as yet hardly appreciate. My Canterbury readers will recollect that the Government engineers who were responsible for the undertaking told us that if more power were required, it would be feasible to divert the Wilberforce and Harper Rivers into Lake Coleridge. Together, these two rivers probably bring down more than half the water which flaws under the Rakaia railway bridge. The lake is a magnificent natural reservoir, mountain fringed, and at an elevation of over 1,600 feet. It needs little imagination to guess what might be done ​in irrigation with such a volume of water, at such an elevation, and under complete control. It is surely no exaggeration to suggest that the hundreds of square miles of gently sloping plains which lie between Lake Coleridge and the sea, might be converted into water meadows, and that then there would be water to spare for fruit-growing on the more arid lands as is done in Central Otago. And let us remember, the Rakaia, with its tributaries, is only one of the rivers of Canterbury.
These are inspiring possibilities, and their fulfilment need entail no sacrifice of the beauty and other characteristics of the city. There remains room for additional thousands of workers’ homes, each surrounded with its garden and flowers, and with electric power available, there need be none of that pall of smoke which has laid waste some of the fairest of the midland counties in England.
Perhaps it may be thought that the picture presented is too rosy—it is better, I think, to be an optimist than a pessimist. With Mr. Asquith I say: “Wait and see.”
In these anticipations I have deliberately refrained from commenting on the proposal to form a “Port Christchurch,” with an entrance from the sea at Sumner. Some notes about the proposal will be found in the Appendix, but this is not the place to raise so controversial an issue.
I cannot exercise the same reticence about the Lyttelton Tunnel. It is a standing credit to the enterprise of the mere handful of settlers who built it fifty years ago, but it is not to the credit of the present generation that the passage of the whole commerce of North Canterbury, outward and inward, should still continue to be risked through a single tunnel—an accident, or a few sticks of dynamite, and rail communication between the port and the plains might be interrupted for months, or even Years.
Canterbury was founded as an English settlement, ​though administered at first by Irishmen. Possibly owing to the superiority of its land and climate, it has since attracted many stalwart Scottish settlers from Otago. Wales is also represented among us. But the essential feature is that we are an entirely British community. One of the lessons of Armageddon is the danger of a mixed population. We can read that lesson in Africa, in the United States of America, even in little Samoa. What has been said about Canterbury applies equally to the other New Zealand provinces. Their days of childhood are over, and each city and each province may be said to have arrived at man’s estate, and to have begun to bear its share in the dangers and responsibilities of a great Empire. That share may be comparatively small at present, but when the tide of immigration begins to flow in, it is to be hoped that the rulers of New Zealand will hold the race gate firmly.
These lines are written under the shadow of a world crisis. With the termination of the great war must come many changes—social, economic and political—a new chapter in the world’s history is about to be opened. What will be written there of Canterbury and of Christchurch?
The end.