SYDNEY'S PARKS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 53, 31 August 1926, Page 9

SYDNEY'S PARKS

MEEE FIG-TEEE PLANTATIONS,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, 19th August. A movement aiming at tho more effective control of Sydney's parks, and at a more adequate return for the yearly expenditure of upwards of £35,000 which is allocated by the City Council for their maintenance and improvement, is generally supported, especially among those in a position to compare the city parks and gardens with those in other cities. The comment in the Press, in reference to the question, that the metropolis of Sydney has the unenviable distinction of "breathing spaces" which can only be described as thirdrate, even on a comparison of Australian standards, .is not without justification. Even if it may be regarded as profanity, as base irreverence, for a Sydneysider to say so, the fact remains that Sydney's parks, with one or two exceptions, lack the well-ordered beauty and landscape effects of the open spaces of Melbourne, for example, not to mention those of the New Zealand cities. Apart from the Botanic Gardens, Hyde Park, which is now largely in the possession of the Railway Commissioners, for the purposes of the underground railway, and, in a lesser degree, Centennial Park, Sydney's parks, as has been pointed out, could in very many cases be mistaken for mere fig-tree plantations, devoid as they are of flowers and landscape effects.