BACK TO THE GRASS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25301, 11 August 1943, Page 2

BACK TO THE GRASS

It is indeed a welcome announcement that the Mayor has made with regard to the modification of air raid precautions in the city. In the early stages of the war in the Pacific, when Japanese aggression appeared to be moving with ominous certainty towards this southern link in the Allied chain of communications, the air raid precautions scheme obtained ready endorsement in a public mind affected by an understandable nervousness. Those anxieties are now, fortunately, a thing of the past. The enemy has lost the initiative that was his during the perilous period of Allied unpreparedness in the Pacific, and it may be assumed with full confidence that never again will he be able to contemplate the possibility of making either naval or military excursions into these latitudes. The feeling of greater security engendered by recent developments in the South-western Pacific • area has found expression in the decision of . the Government to reduce all civil defence activities in the Dominion, and it is a logical corollary that civic precautions also should be relaxed in reasonable degree. It is to be hoped, however, that the Mayor’s statement in this connection is not to be read as touching the limits of present reasonableness. What he says is that open slit trenches may now be closed where they are thought to constitute a nuisance or a danger, or where their maintenance is difficult or expensive; and in terms of this instruction it is proposed to fill in the trenches in the Octagon and Market reserves and to restore to these places their former beauty of grass and flowers. Citizens will be grateful for even this much evidence of a return to the pleasant normality of yester-year. But why the Octagon and the Market reserves only? There are many other reserves where ruins of slit trenches and scarred surfaces that once were smooth, green turf oppress the mind with a sense of shock and—at this stage—needless despoliation. Is there any reason why all this sad

havoc should not now be repaired, as the availability of labour and other circumstances permit? If official optimism warrants the redemption of two of the city’s open places from, the enforced damage'and neglect of the crisis period, the restoring touch might, with equal reason, be applied to them all. Spring and summer would then be even more welcome arrivals in a city which only wants opportunity to look its best. The - Mayor’s decree is that, in the meantime, the pipe-shelters must remain, though they enhance the civic scene not at all and would also seem to have outlived the days of their likely usefulness. But if the pipes must still be tolerated, let us at any rate get rid of what remains of the trenches. Tidy grass and trees make wholesome places for playing children —and for birds.