"NOTHING TO LEARN!"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 111, 7 November 1933, Page 8

"NOTHING TO LEARN!"

OUR TOWN PLANNING

DO WE LACK IMAGINATION ?

"Like all institutes which are working on altruistic principles, .we should be satisfied with slow, continuous, but constant progress, and from my observations this is y what we are having," said tho president of the New Zealand Institute of .Town. Planning (Mr. S. Blaekley) at the annual meeting of the institute. "To some of you the road may seem long or the process irksome, but it is a long lane that has noturning, and although, so far,'we have received from the Government little. or no encouragement to- our-efforts to promote the principles and practice, of. town and country planning, we can live, in the hope that one of these days a man will get up in: Parliament who has taken the time and trouble to study this subject and who with the courage of his convictions will, bring home to his confreres a realisation of j the national waste which results from building our cities and developing our country without any preconceived plan based on scientific and ascertained facts.

"I sometimes wonder if this country is suffering from insular,.nationalism. Do we lack imagination! Is our faculty erf observation failing! Are we paying sufficient attention to what is being done in other countries and taking full advantage of their'experience, or are we satisfied just to muddle along? 'Wo have nothing, to learn' is a favourite expression in addresses by politicians and others when referring to other countries they have recently visited. This invariably brings applause, but I have noticed of late that the applause is inot-quite so prolonged.. Does this indicate that the, people, of New Zealand are acquiring a sense of values, that the man in. the street is thinking more for himself and is no longer prepared to be gulled by statements, which are only made to please?"