THIS AGE OF RACKET.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19240, 2 August 1924, Page 21

THIS AGE OF RACKET.

PROPOSAL FOR WORLD ANTI-NOISE UNION. A REALLY BRIGHT’ IDEA. An American has struck a really bright idea.. He is a writer in tho Sunday Now York American. Ho wants to knew why there should not bo a groat international union for the suppression of noise, with prizes for sound-proof devices on railroads in cities, in tunnols, in factories, and everywhere else. “If a mosquito buzzes,” Jio says, “ wo 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 tho sick, tho steam whistles—against these wo have only words to defend ourselves.” Ho forgets to add that the most appropriate of words are banned bv tho law. Every machine, ho says, is a new noise. Every political thought is another new, and terrific, and resounding noise. Every new religion, is largely noise. The noisy ore seen and heard, and tho cpiiet ignored. “ Who shall find words to tell what a curse unnecessary noise is to human life'.'” he asks. “ Who will lead a world-wide movement for the abolition of the unnecessary noise nuisance? ” Another impassioned American adds to his appeal, “ Tho man that wouldn’t steal your money or your good name will steal your rest and your peace with some now noiso of his own inventing. I would rather ho should steal of my money. Men that call themselves free, and allow themselves to be subjected to the nerve-racking, sleep-destroying, mind-benumbing, patience-killing, hideous, horrible, and unholy hcllowings and shriekings of our so-called civilisation, don’t know what freedom is! ” Now these few woll-choscn words stale (he case for long-suffering humanity, or rather for the more important submerged tenth—submerged that is in tho flood of noiso for which the remainder of humanity is responsible. Doubtless the names of these Americans who have suggested tho international union will bo lifted one day from obscurity, and be immortalised for the supremo benefits that their humanitarian owners have bestowed upon their kind. To-day tho noisy nuisances form tho vast majority here a, 9 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 tho Farmers’ Union presents? Has not that minority come into its own? Emphatically, it has! It has come into its own, and a great deal more that is not really its own, and is never likely to 1m?. A SUPREME HEAD. The international union for (he suppression of noiso 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 the submerged ton lb are not even faintly hoard as yet. How can they bo, when they are drowned in noise? That old saying nf our grandmothers, when they wanted to bilk thornslvcs. and to prevent us from doing so—“ Little people should be scon, and not heard”—has been distorted out of sight hy the noisy majority. Tho trouble 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, ami they are hoard. Conceit is an all-important factor in this curse of noise. Now, instead of waiting for attainment ’ of the ideal, why should wo not get busy on immediate and salutary reforms in our own community? Wo should amend primarily our criminal and police codes. Many of the minority will concede that it should ho perfectly legal to swear appropriately, if not loudly, at suburban sopranos next. door. A shot run should ho the permissible corrective for Iho brutal baritone or the tameless tenor. Bombs should be legalised for gasping gramophones and painful pianos. Reasonable restrictions of the diameter should be sanctioned for all the amateurs by whom composers are. cruelly done to death. Little people should be seen, and not heard! But these little people always are hoard. They seem to select neighbourhoods noted for quiet, so that they may bo heard. They a.rn mil for audiences, and they make sure of getting Iheni! They get them! They have done more to develop (he outer suburbs of our cities than even the electric tramways. The harassed householder or tho tortured tenant, is driven further afield. Ho simply waui-s quiet ami lie seeks it; hut. lie doesn’t got it for long. Does not Kipling, or somebody else, sav feelingly: He shall desire loneliness. And Ilia desire fiball bring Hard on his heels a thousand squeals, or something reasonably like it? Tho owner sells up at a sacrifice, or the tenant terminates his lease, a.ncl flies further from the city. After him comes the squealers, the howlers; their pianos, their gramophones; they invest him afresh; and they are aided and abetted by the Railway Commissioners and the Tramways Board, because it is good for traffic. Commissioners and boards are equally culpable, with their rattling. clattering, clanging cars, and their passengers, nine-tenths pf whom—or nearly so —are noisy. There is no escape for the citizen seeking quiet, unless he 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.

Tho extreme torture of unnecessry noiso falls on the resident of tho suburbs. He just has to listen to noise, noise, noise. At dawn the milkman rouses him with clanging. clattering cans. His neighbours take their baths and sing. Clanging, clattering train or tram bears him into a rattling, clattering, ever-sounding city. His day is full of noise. Ho returns homo in clanging, clattering train or tram; ho returns to sounds—ear-splitting, nerveracking sounds from an un-neighbourly neighbourhood. Singers who simply should not, try. Pianists who should not, play. Gramophone records of vocal indiscretions imported from abroad render the lovor of quiet a more confirmed protectionist. As ho lies in bed he listens to roosters crowing, to dogs barking and having the moon, to puffing, groaning goods trains, to motor cars coming home late, to motor cycles, worst of mechanical torments, going off pop—to sounds, sounds, sounds ordinarily unnecessary. _ This unnecessary noise in the average city is growing louder and louder year by year. It is so tho world over. Nervo 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 lime that the community took itself in hand. It is time that it entered on a little silent meditation concerning tho curse and its cure. It is time that reasonable regulations were passed to ensure rest and respite from unnecessary noise, and to compel tho little people, who make nearly all tho unnecessary noise, if 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 tho possibilities of the reduction of unnecessary noiso from mechanism. With tho international union for the suppression of noise as the ultimate ideal, wo snould none tho less attempt tho 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, tho ideal of tho league is world peace.