The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1921. Running Amok.

Evening Star, Issue 17573, 31 January 1921, Page 4

The Evening Star MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 1921.

Running Amok.

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

A kindly judgment of those who feel it is-their privilege to chasten us is inculcated

by the saying, and some will always incline to take undue advantage of the charity it tenches. Wc fear it is presumed upon by the correspondent who, in his ‘‘open letter” to the, mayors and citizens of Dunedin and St. Kilda, affects to tell them all that is wrong with his city and theirs. It is a great chapter of faults—sins of commission and omission—which he enumerates. Our candid friends ate apt to be most exasperating when they rehearse our deficiencies, real or imaginary, with such appearance of relish as if it afforded them a malicious pleasure to discover them ; and this critic is not free from the manner. But the harsh criticisms which he attributes, ii'i the first instance, to a travelled acquaintance need not be taken too seriously. As no one who is wise will be. annoyed by them, so also wo imagine that no one will feel unduly humiliated. The shortcomings—those which must be acknowledged when allowance has been made for the exaggerations of the writer and his obvious desire to make our flesh creep—may not be more than can be amended, or might be found to have their counterpart in other communities.

“ Satire’s my weapon, but I’m too discreet to run abroad and tilt at all I meet,” said an astute mentor. Xot so our present censor. 'iSierc is nothing in Dunedin that does not strike him as being at once amiss and without excuse, from the St. Clair groynes upwards or downwards. The groynes are not an. ornament of the beach —a statue of Canute might look much better and it is difficult for laymen to feel convinced that they can make much difference to the current. But science, not limited to Dunedin, has its convictions on that point, and engineering science is not empirical; its methods are based on wide nnd long experience. The experts may he wrong ui recommending groynes for St. Clair winch are very much of an eyesore; in such matters, if the object is utility before beauty, there is nothing to do but trust the experts till the test contheir theories ns inapplicable. Dunedin trams are overcrowded, and so arc those in all the other cities, where the war’s effects in hampering tramway enterprise, as well as other kinds of civic development, have been felt no less than here. More cars have heen ordered by the local corporation, and when they are available there will be more room for standing, if not for sitting. Meanwhile there are advantages in livincr in Dunedin, whose tramway system is the only one in the Dominion which, through a five years’ war and for two years after it, has continued to carry passengers for a penny, while most others have had to raise their fares more than once. If that advantage of Dunedin service is ascribed to Waipori, credit surely is due to thus city for being the first 1 in the Dominion to appreciate the value of hydro-electric power for the assistance of its industries and for developing it n;,% has done.

The travelled friend who impresses so the writer of this “open letter’’ must know very little of the other Yew Zealand towns, where his “ traveller’s tales ” would ho apt to cause sad smiles. It is a vexatious thing not to bo* allowed to use a garden hose in the dry months of summer, hut the prohibition is found necessary, for longer or shorter periods, in a great many Dominion towns; and Auckland and Wellington are as ranch exercised now by the need for improvement of _ their ’-vater supplies as is Dunedin. Ihere have been more muddling and mismanagement in regard to the water supply of Dunedin than in respect of any other department which the council has had to control, and nerversitv in that matter makes the chief trait of its ■ present policy. A million more gallons a day, to he had almost at once and at cheap cost from artesian siourccs, have been promised ; and the council will not even examine that prospect in its obstinate addiction to an expensive scheme, rejected already by the ratepayers, to bring water in fivo years’ time from the Lee, which an engineer has pronounced to be at times not palatable owing to its peatr taste and smell. But a new council can correct this foolishness, and the general arraignment of the mentor who, in his privileged position as one of the family, seeks to show this community all its errors ( shonld ho modified when he has spent more time in other cities. He may repeat then the experience of the man in the legend who, after /long wandering, fell in love with a most beautiful woman, olily to find that she was his wife whom he had despised.