THIS AGE OF RACKET.

Northern Advocate, 23 August 1924, Page 12 (Supplement)

THIS AGE OF RACKET.

PEOPOSAL FOE WORLD ANTINOISE UNION. A EEALLY BRIGHT IDEA. An American has struck a really bright idea. He is a writer in the "Sunday New York American. ,, He wants to know why there should not be a great international union for the suppression of noise, with prizes for sound-proof devices on railroads in cities, in tunnels, in factories, and everywhere else. "If a mosquito buzzes, ,, he says, "we are allowed by law to smash it. But the yelling street merchant, the exploding, back-firing automobile, the shrill blast of the locomotive, waking an entire town, the hideous bells that disturb the sick, the s'team whistles —against these we have only words to defend ourselves. ,, He forgets to add that the most appropriate of words are banned by the law. Every machine, he says, is a new noise. Every political thought is another new, and terrific and resounding noise. Eevery new religion is largely noise. The noisy are seen and heard, and the quiet ignored. "Who shall find words to tell what a curse unnecessary noise is to human life? ,, he asks. "Who will lead a 4 world-wide movement for the abolition of the unnecessary noise nuisance? ,, Another impassioned American adds to his appeal. "The man that wouldn't steal your money or your good name i will steal your rest and your peace j with some new noise of his own inven- j ting. I would rather he should steal of my money. Men that call themselves free, and allow themselves to be sub- j jeeted to the nerve-racking, sleep-des- j troying, mind-benumbing, patience-kill-ing, hideous, horrible, and unholy bellowings and shriekings of our so-called civilisation, don't know what freedom is! ,, Now these few well-chosen words state the case for long-suffering humanity, or rather for the more important submerged tenth —submerged that is in the flood .of noise for which the "remainder of humanity is responsible. Doubtless the names of these Americans who have suggested the international union will be lifted one day from obscurity, and be immortalised for the supreme benefits that their humanitarian owners have bestowed j upon their kind. To-day the noisy ! nuisances form the vast majority here as elsewhere, declares a writer in a Melbourne paper. But minorities sometimes triumph. Minorities sometimes come into their own. Have we at hand a more striking and convincing illustration of this than the Farmers , Union presents? Has not that minority come into its own? Emphatically, it has! It has come into its own, and a j great deal more that is not really its { own, and is never likely to be. A SUPEEME HEAD. The international union for the suppression of noise is a supreme ideal for mankind. But it is merely an ideal after all, and its attainment is a long, long way away. The voices of tlfe submerged tenth are not even faintly heard as yet. How can they be, when they are drowned in noise? That old saying of our grandmothers, when they wanted to talk ihemselves, and to prevent us from doing so —"Little people should be -seen and not heard ,, —has been distorted out of sight by the noisy majority. The troiible the world over is that the little people are heard. The. man who can't sing does. The politicians who should not talk shout. The little people talk, and sing, and shout, and scream, and squeal the world over, and they are heard. Conceit is an allimportant factor in this curse of noise. Wow, instead of waiting for attainment of the ideal, why should we not get busy on immediate and salutary reforms in. our own community? We should amend primarily our criminal and police codes. Many of the minority will concede that it should be perfectly legal to swear appropriately, if iiot loudly, at suburban sopranos next door. A shot gun should be the permissible corrective for the brutal baritone or the tameless tenor. Bombs should be legalised for gasping gramophones and painful pianos. Reasonable restrictions of the character should be sanctioned for all the amateurs by whom composers are cruelly done to j death. Little people should be seen, i «ind not heard!

But these little people always are heard. They seem to select neighbourhoods noted for quiet, so that they may "be heard. They are out for audiences, and thoy make sure of getting them! They get them! They have done more to develop the outer suburbs of our cities than even the electric tramways. The harassed householder or the tortured tenant is driven further and further afield. He simply wants quiet and he seeks it; but he doesn't get it for long. Does not Kipling, or somebody else, say feelingly:— He shall desire loneliness, And his desire shall bring Hard on his heels a thousand squeals, or something reasonably like it? The owner sells up at e sacrifice, or the tenant terminates his lease, and flies further from the city. After him comes the squealers, the howlers; their pianos, their gramophones; they invest him affesh; and they are. aided and abetted by the Bailwfiy Commissioners and the Tramways Boards, because it is good for traffic. Commissioners and boards «re equally culpable, with their rattling, clattering, clanging cars, and •ttifeiT T>anaengarH. •nine-tenths of- whom

—or nearly so—are noisy. There is no eccape for the citizen seeking quiet, unless we have the means to carry out the idea of "a lodge in some vast wilderness" —or, in other words, a house at the centre of a far larger block than the average citizen can afford at the present boom prices. AFFLICTED SUBURBS. The extreme torture of unnecessary noise falls on tho resident of the suburbs. He just has to lister, to noise, noise, noise. At dawn flip milkman rouses him with clanginc;', clattering cans. His neighbours take their baths and sing. Clanging, clattering train or

tram boar? him into a rattling, clattering, ever-soundin<; , c-ity. His day is full of noise. Ho returns homo in clanging, clattering train or tram; lie returns to sounds — ear-splitting, nerve-racking sounds from an un-neighbourly neighbourhood. Singers who simply should not, try. Pianists who should not, play. Gramophones records of vocal indiscretions imported from abroad render the lover of quiet a more confirmed protectionist. As he lies in bed he listens t'o roosters crowing, to dogs barking and baying the moon, to puffing, groaning goods trains; to motorcars coming home late, to motor cycles, worst of mechanical torments, I going off pop—to sounds, sounds ordinarily unnecessary. This unnecessary noise in the average city is growing louder and louder year by year It is so the world over. Noise specialists profit from it. Sensational newspapers profit too, by speculations on mysterious crimes—by innocent citizens losing their mental balance and going out and killing someone. It is time that the community took itself in hand. It is time that it entered on ,i little silent meditation concerning the curse and its cure. It is time that reasonable regulations were passed to ensure rest and respite from unnecessary noise, and to compel the little people, seen to be no longer ■ heard. Municipal by-laws should either abolish amateurish atrocities in our closely settled suburbs or restrict them to definite hours. Departmental investigations should be directed ! into the possibilities of the reduction of unnecessary noise from mechanism. ; With the international union for the suppression of noise as the ultimate ideal, we should none the less attempt the practical remedies that are within our reach. |

And in regard to this international union, why should not the reformers approach the League of Nations itself? After all, the ideal of the League is World Peace.