POST OFFICE HOARDING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22203, 5 March 1934, Page 10

POST OFFICE HOARDING

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib,—ls is ,not a, fact that the present fence round the site of the new Post Office was erected by the Public Works Department out of public funds? If so, should not any revenue (estimated at £ 1100 for threeyears' advertising) go to the State, to whom it rightly belongs? !, The public money is the people's money, and 'the taxpayer is the one who should benefit, if our thoroughfare is to be so disfigured. I do not know when bur worthy Mayor was last in London, but the City of Westminster in 1932. debarred advertisements from hoardings surrounding,the new Park 'Hotel'facing JMarble Arch, which, ■■ at, the time I speak pf, was about the largest building being erected in London.—-I am, etc.,; \ New Zealandeb. • i [The fence, which was erected by the Public Works Department, was taken over by the contractors for the Post'-Office, and now belongs to them,—Ed., O;D.T.] TO THE EDITOR. ' - Sis,— -I read with interest and disgust the report of the way in which the City Council dealt .with the matter of hoardings round the new Post Office site. In my opinion, we have quite enough crudelypainted "scenes" and posters of ;deplor-r ably low standard .in this city already. Cr Jones said, "If they could get artistic signs, v they would tend to beautify the hoarding." This is quite true. But what an'immense "if." For one thing, if.the council make the paintings on the Exhibition fence their; standard of comparison, then their judgment is already damned; ; and their taste is to be the judge! Secondly, for purely decorative purposes, advertisements designed in good lettering of a dignified kind would be preferable .to paintings neither artistic nor', commercially effective. There is no reason why advertising signs should be uglyj 'for in: commercial art to-day we find 1 some ; of. the finest works of art; but it is not likely that the "artist" chosen for this work will be either artistically or commercially trained. Instead of advertising our lack of. art-appreciation by erecting on streets such "crudities; let us rather show visitors to our city our good taste by being able to leave at least one fence a pure unsullied blankness. There is n'othing distasteful about either plain wood_or ilat paint.—l am, .etc., \ .H. V. M.