ENGLISH SCENERY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18901, 17 January 1927, Page 8

ENGLISH SCENERY.

——♦ DRAWBACK OF HOARDINGS. "English visitors arc attracted in large numbers to foreign countries to enjoy the scenery and to take advantage of the many attractions offered to holiday makers. But the English people themselves are too apt to overlook the fact that people from other lands are equally interested in the natural and historic attractions of this old country. Not only in the matter-of hotel accommodation is this deficiency to bo noted as a kind of negative drawback, but a positive deterrent is set up by the practice of spoiling the landscape and the approaches to our quaint and picturesque country towns by the wholesale erection of ugly hoardings," says an English journal. Unseemly Desecration. "It is a narrow view of busiuess that leads to such unseemly desecration, aud the matter needs to bo taken in hand by local authorities under the powers already granted to them by Parliament for the adoption of by-laws to prevent this kind of thing. We certainly had hoped for better things as the result of recent legislation ou the subject, and we are led to ask whether it is not now advisable to carry the matter further by taking the initiative out of the hands of the local authorities in which it has been placed, and setting up a quasi-.Government department in touch, say, with the Board of Education, which should have the power to make' regulations, and to see that thev are carried out impartially over the Whole countrv. 'The present system of permissive

and piecemeal control may be plausible in theory, but it is futile in practice. While respecting the so-called liberty of the subject, it degenerates into licence which not only spoils the amenities of our countryside and our historic towns, but, by making them less attractive to foreign visitors, is killing the goose which* lays some of our golden eggs."