THE QUEEN’S GARDENS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22631, 24 July 1935, Page 8

THE QUEEN’S GARDENS

The Mayor complains tliat through some mischance, for which he blames Councillor Allen, the consideration of the question whether public speaking should be allowed in the Queen’s Gardens was not stifled in the meantime. He did not indicate why the Council —by which 'he meant the Labour majority in the Council —would have preferred to' be excused from arriving at any decision on the matter at present. The public is not, however, likely to be mistaken if it concludes that the fact that the general election will be held in a few months’ time is a reason why the Labour majority desired to burk a discussion. Five members of that majority are candidates for election to Parliament and, although Councillor Silverstone scoffs at sentiment, particularly when it conflicts with what he calls “practical considerations,” these five are apprehensive of the effect which the sentiment in favour of the exclusion of political meetings from the Queen’s Gardens may have upofi their chances of success. And one of those “practical considerations ” is that the Queen’s Gardens are, according to Councillor Neilson, who may be assumed to be an authority on this subject, the best place for public speaking in Dunedin. “It is no good,” he says, “ offering out-of-the-way places where speakers have no chance of getting a crowd.” It has been his pathetic experience, no doubt, to address many of these open-air meetings at which there has been a signal absence of anything that even approached a crowd. It is possible, therefore, to sympathise with -him in his desire to secure larger audiences. It must be most discouraging to the orators in public reserves to know that the handful of people that ordinarily forms their audience consists only of the converted. Even if the stragglers whom Councillors Silverstone and Neilson may have the opportunity of addressing in the Queen’s Gardens on a Sunday afternoon are attracted only by curiosity and do not stay long, they will at least swell the number of listeners to dimensions that are not pitiably insignificant. Whether openair meetings here or elsewhere have any real value from a propagandist standpoint—and that must be another of Councillor Silverstone’s “ practical considerations is a point concerning Which the Labour majority in the Council probably deceives itself. The people who may pause for a few minutes to listen to the orator of the moment are tolerably good judges of the “cant, hypocrisy and humbug”— to use Councillor Batchelor’s expression—that seem to constitute the staple ! of the eloquence that is poured forth on these occasions.