BEAUTY DESECRATED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20987, 25 September 1931, Page 10

BEAUTY DESECRATED.

HOARDINGS CONDEMNED. USE OF THE NEWSPAPERS. i The disfiguration of the city and country by advertising hoardings was 6trongly condemned by Mr. M. G. C. McCaul in an address to a meeting of the Wellington branch of the Town Planning Institute of New Zealand. "I strongly object when gazing at some charming scene in nature to have my attention distracted by an adjuration to drain and refill with somebody's oil or to drink only somebody's whisky," Mr. McCaul said. "Striking pictures in prominent places are necessary to convey mean- j ing to the unlettered savage, but in an educated community surely it is possible to confine advertising to the daily newspapers, which are provided for the purpose of publishing news and public announcements. I hope the time will come when all public advertising will be confined to public journals. Is it really necessary in the interests of commerce to desecrate the beauty with which God has so lavishly endowed our country ? I do not think" so. Indeed, I firmly believe commerce can be more efficiently carried on in pleasant surroundings." The world to-day was suffering very largely from the strain modern life placed upon the nervous system. Beauty was restful, for it. was in harmony with nature. Ugliness jarred, for it was out of harmony, and it injured none the less because by use people had grown accustomed to it. "indeed, if wo become so accustomed to ugliness and lack of harmony as not to realise its presence it is proof that we have absorbed it until it has become a part of our nature, which is a very evil state and one that we should look to," Mr. McCaul added.