THE LANDSCAPE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LV, Issue 9515, 22 June 1927, Page 4

THE LANDSCAPE

"FEATURES OF INTEREST' SIGNS PROTEST AGAINST LABELLING PROCESS. Mr J. C. Squire, in his editorial notes in the London Mercury, attacks the new proposal to erect signs in villages and small towns that describe the features of the district. He does not approve oi this labelling process. Mr Squire writes: —"The R.A.C. and A.A. are extremely useful bodies. They have been useful, and are likely to be more useful in the future, as representatives of the motoring community in their relations with the public authorities; their scouts are always courteous and (when called upon) helpful; their year-books are invaluable on the road: they perform multifarious small services to their members. But like other organisations they have oflicials and committees; like other officials and committees these are anxious to do something: and, as too often happens, when they have exhausted fields where their operations are valuable and desirable, they cannot help inventing jobs for themselves which thev had much better not undertake, .lust as the governing bodies of sport, for lack of other occupation, will continually- mess about with the Rules, so these, 'being able to think of nothing elso to justify their existence, have begun messing about with the landscape. "The A.A. began it. The thin end of the wedge was the erection of round, ugly, but undoubtedly conspicuous, signs at the entrances to villages, giving the names of the places and information about distances. To these, except on aesthetic grounds, there was no obioclion: it is often useful to know, where one is. Encouraged l>ythisan>% ous to do something more, they proceeded to stick up notices on most of the bridges in the country, staling 'name of bridge and river' on hideous yellow tongues. "These things are bad enough; they are almost universally abused; they ought to be removed. But we recoil in horrow before the latest proposal of the R.A.C. which, after long meditation and preparation, has triumphantly gojie one better than the A.A. The R.A.C. announces that beginning on the Bath Road as a corpus vile, it desires (subject io the connivance of local councils) to erect signs at the entrances to towns and villages, giving lists of the 'features of interest' therein to be sought. Walking up Kingsway one day last month we saw in the window of an enterprising agent what is desribed as .1 'preliminary specimen' of the sort of thing which mny shortly, in this country, provide us with an equivalent for the engaging notices which constantly greet the motorist in America. 'The Chamber of Commerce Greets You: populalion, 1914, 3.000: 1026, 10,000' and 'Welcome Io Troy!" Mere it is, though we can only give the words and not the unpleasantness of the lettering; (R.A.C. Badge.) CAERWENT THE ROMAN VENTA SILURUM TOWN WALLS AND GATEWAYS FORUM—TEMPLE—ARENA INTERESTING PARISH CHURCH MEMORIAL OF FAMOUS ROMAN GENERAL \LTAR OF MARS. MOSAIC FLOORS, ETC. "A footnote on the advertisement of this monstrosity states:— "These signs are intended to encourage a regard for the antiquities and picturesque details of Brfftsh landscape on the part of motorists and other roadusers by setting forth the points of interest at the entrances to towns and villages "in a restrained and dignified manner' (our quotes). "If anything could make us feel inclined to use in print the stronger expletives in our language, this would be it. "The specimen exhibiting these notices is probably better than most. Roman remains are exceptional things, and commonly associated with notice-boards and gale-money. ,The ordinary village or small town still probably have to have lists like this: "Stye Porcorum. Church: Norman 'Doorway. Two Interesting Tombs. Next Street on Left, Beautiful View at End. Third Street on Right. Old Thached Cottage. Manor House End of Town; Joshua Blenkinsop Was Born Here.' Very little information can he given. What is given can only duplicate, in un abbreviated form, what is provided jn the multitude of guide-books now issued, some of which are possessed by almost every motorist. But even where this is not so, most of us will strongly resent being robbed of the pleasures of discovery. This labelling process ha.s started: where will it stop? If the R.A.C. is to begin by placarding villages, there is no reason why it should not next put up notices on trees and marshes saying: "This is a Very Old Oak,' or 'Spotted Fritillary Found Here.' "It is all just as offensive in Us way as the defilement of the landscape by advertisements which has been rather mitigated of late years. There was once a soap-firm which approached the local auhorities at Dover for permission to put up on the celebrated white cliffs there a notice: 'These Cliffs Were Washed with 's Soap.' It would be no great improvement on that to have a notice up on the corner of the cliffs headed 'by the R.A.C. device, saying: 'Do Not On Any Account Miss These Noble Cliffs, One of Which Was Mentioned by Shakespeare.' __^ 'Manv of our readers must belong to the R.A.C. or the A.A.; let them write in to Ihese two organisations and pro-.' test against their taking the British landscape in hand; It is not their business. Let tfTem concentrate on a revision of the basis of motor taxation, and they shall have our blessing." "A fine of £2 has recently been imposed upon a trespasser in a Surrey wood for digging' up the roots of wild daffodils, a form of vandalism" which is considerably easier to understand, if not to sympathise with, than the commoner vice of carving initials on limestone crags or leaving a trail of paper bags and orange peel on heath and hill. The la.tter definitely adds ugliness to the landscape, the former only removes, so the defence runs, an indistinguishable speak from multitudinous seas of golden splendour," says the Daily Telegraph. "The instinct that prompts the citydweller to snatch every propitious moment at this season of the year, and drive, cycle, or walk into the heart of the country to see the burgeoning of Spring is as natural as it is healthy, for the England that we love is not an abstract symbol, but a concrete living reality compact of exquisite scenets and gorgeous colours. Countrymen as we all are at heart, -we have, however, to learn to share the glory of our English garden with several million co-heirs. To dash into a corner of it, and, having despoiled it of its blooms, to return home triumphantly trophy-laden is to place oneself on the level of a rhinoceros trampling its victims into the earth with a completely motiveless malignity. The gates of the garden of England are opening, and the vision vouchsafed is lovely indeed. It behoves us not to abuse a priceless privilege, but to curb the ardour which prompts us to degenerate into private collectors, and in its place determine to Be of those who leave the garden even more beautiful than they found it. A lark soaring and singing over our heads on the downs adds to our own sense of freedom. A lark in a cage puts, like Rlake's robin, nil heaven in a rage. A golden, dancing daffodil beneath the trees sends man's spirits soaring sky-high; uprooted, transplanted, its wildness famed, it is m-il more exhilarating than any other cultivated flower."