Civic Needs

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25270, 23 August 1947, Page 8

Civic Needs

It is to be hoped that Cr. A. R. Guthrey’s special article on this page on Tuesday will not merely have made the sharp impression of a njoment on his colleagues and on his fellow citizens but will have started in them a train of reflection. Nothing would be easier than to begin debating with him—and nothing could be less profitable (or less fair) than to begin the debate by retorting that Cr. Guthrey clearly does not favour a vigorous campaign to develop industry in Christchurch, criticises the expansion and development committee set up by the City Council because it is driving in that direction, and likes Little Christchurch better than Greater Christchurch. Cr. Guthrey has taken the risk of provoking this sort of retort because he has been bold enough to say—though he said it quite reasonably—that there are dangers in industrialising with more zeal than forethought, in letting urban and suburban development extend our built-up areas where it will and lift our population densities as it may, and, above all, in thinking too much of economic expansion and too little, or not at all, of the social and cultural standards upon which this expansion will react It hardly needs to be said that, if civic ends are crudely defined and pursued, success will be crudely rewarded. If ends and values less material are subordinated and neglected, there will be no unearned increment of dignity, sanity, and beauty in civic life. H. G. Wells, not one to turn his back on mater-

ial good in all its forms, wrote once, “Who loves the rose must tend the “rose, himself”. Christchurch has long professed this love; it inherited its civic rose from the founders and early designers and builders of the town, and professes to honour them; but it has given the rose poor, ungenerous tendance. It has not prepared, and is not preparing, for a generation 50 years hence, an endowment equivalent to that which it now enjoys. Cr. Guthrey had a good deal to say about the Town Hall project, and it is well that so much was said; but it will not be well if the Town Hall project is regarded as one of supreme or single importance, in achieving which Christchurch will have vindicated its regard for ends other tharf economic and from achieving which it may fall back contented and selfcontent. It is of more than supreme or single importance; it is typically important. What matters much more to Christchurch than a Town Hall is a civic spirit which will never be satisfied with meanness on the one hand or vulgar ostentation on the other—which will never rest for long under the charge of “ becoming “ too parochial ”.