The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1935. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST NOISE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 8

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

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1935. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST NOISE

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the icrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

Auckland progresses. A private citizen appeals by pavement signs for quiet 011 the road past the Hospital; a society against noise is formed; and the City Engineer reports to t the Council 011 city noises. Mr. Tyler's report to the Council is flavoured with sweet reasonableness. As he points out, noise can be lessened only by despotic intervention by the appointed authority of society, or by the co-operation of individuals. Most offences are caused by want of thought or by indolence rather than deliberate lack of consideration, and the best remedy is education. True very

true, but a citizen tortured by the machinegun fire of cyclists or a sexless crooner apostrophising his "sweetie" through a loud speaker next door, may feel as Ivo-Ko did when the Mikado promised to amend the Act —next session. The trouble is that education works so slowly, and the need for reducing the amount of noise is urgent. Traffic noises can be regulated fairly easily by by-laws drastically enforced. The immunity of motor cyclists whose machines are noisy has become ' a scandal, but the present deplorable state of affairs can be remedied without difficulty, and one expects that when the City Council's traffic staff is increased an adequate crusade will be launched. More difficult to deal with are noises such as arc produced by drills that tear up the roadway, sometimes at night. What is the greatest good of the greatest number; should residents round about be considered, or the pockets of the ratepayers, who ask that public works be carried out at the lowest possible cost?

Noise made within buildings can be dealt with easily by by-laws if it annoys persons in the street, but apparently it is more difficult to deal with the noise that is objectionable to neighbours. If the law on this point is inadequate it is because it is the product of conditions before broadcasting and gramophones were heard of, and its amendment should be seriously considered. A householder has no right to allow offensive noise to be emitted from his house. Unfortunately many owners of gramophones and wireless sets arc oblivious to the nuisance they cause, just as some owners of dogs do not seem to hear the maddening barking of their pets. Barking dogs are another nuisance that seems to call for amendment of the law.

It is argued that men and women can become accustomed to noise, and in a sense this is true. It is well known that strange noises disturb persons who are well used to other kinds of noise. Farmers sometimes sleep badly in toAvn, and city dwellers are kept awake by the noises of the farm. We •»ay be evolving a type whose mind is indurated by noise, and indeed feeds upon it, like the young writer in England who cannot compose unless the wireless is in full blast. High authority warns us, however, that the process of adjustment is costly. Lord Horder, one of the most eminent physicians in England, tells us what the price is. "The price is that your resistance to noise, a great deal of which is entirely needless and preventable, costs you something that you cannot afford to pay, and a lot of you are '•verdrawn' already. There is no more need to put up with this stupid expenditure of nerve energy through needless noise than there is to put up with the expenditure caused by bad housing, tainted food, impure water, or any other of the preventable conditions that destroy health." Nerves can be broken down without the victim being conscious of the process. The cause of quiet is being served by willing and able writers. The Anti-Noise League in England has the support of representative medical bodies, the Ministries of Air and Transport, the,police, the Post Office, the Admiralty, and the National Physical Laboratory. Architects, engineers, and manufacturers are being impressed by the growing determination to eliminate needless noise, and this summer a Noise Abatement Exhibition will be opened in London, under the patronage of the Prime Minister. New Zealand will have a good deal to learn from this movement in Britain, where the facilities for research are so much greater, but we have conditions here that can and' should be dealt with without any help from England. There is plenty of scope here for a vigorous Anti-Noise Society.