The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1928. DESECRATING AUCKLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 198, 22 August 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1928. DESECRATING AUCKLAND.

Tor the co«m that lack* ifiwtMo*, For the wrong that need* reeietano*, For the future in the And the good that «m em da*

Two matters of first-class importance affecting the aesthetics of Auckland came before the Town Planning Association last evening, and the Association is to be congratulated on the stand it took on the preservation of our volcanic hills and the future of Hobson Bay. The abominable despoiling of the volcanic cones of the isthmus is a long-standing scandal, against which 'public opinion has recently begun to move. Posterity will account us a set of barbarians for what we have permitted on these unique hills. A special committee of the Town Planning Association has made a detailed investigation of all the cones, and has made practical suggestions for safeguarding what is left. These recommendations are not necessarily acceptable in every detail, but they constitute the most important practical attempt yet made to preserve this heritage.

Hard -words, but not too hard, were said at last night's meeting about the proposal of the Railways Department to use portion of Hobson Bay for shunting yards. It is typical of a Government whose right hand so often does not know what its left hand is doing, and does not care, that one Government Department should create a model suburb at Orakei, and another Department should dump a shunting yard beside its graciousness. The proposal at present is to make an island yard of 27 acres, and if this is done the Harbour Board will try to reserve a strip 120 ft deep along the frontage. When this reservation was first suggested we thought that the object might be aesthetic —a strip, say, of trees and grass behind the waterfront road, which would to some extent hide the monstrosity inside —but Mr. Bloodworth says that the land "would assuredly" be used for warehouse sites. It may be said that the Department proposes to take only a portion of the bay, but does anybody believe that if once shunting yards are established the rest will be safe? Most assuredly it will not. Indeed, we would say that if this proposal is not defeated the whole of the bay, which lies on the approach to the city and to tho beautiful eastern suburbs stretching down to the Tamaki, will become a hideous factory area. The Department, of course, does not care. Its outlook is entirely utilitarian. Besides, these matters are decided by officials in Wellington, and what do they care about the beauty of Auckland? Not a snap of the fingers. Their attitude is that of the pork butcher whose only comment on the Pink and White Terraces was, "What a place for scalding pigs"! If the people wish to save what remains of their waterfront from the ultimate horrors of desecration they must be up and doing. They must say emphatically that this thing shall not be, and keep on saying it until the Government gives way.