THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1948. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26747, 16 April 1948, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1948. PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

The lack of town planning in the Dunedin metropolitan area was the subject of some caustic criticism by Mr H. L. Paterson, whose address to the Otago branch of the Real Estate Institute was reported in our columns yesterday. His strictures were timely and, in their implied censure of the civic authority, not altogether undeserved. In the matter of town planning and the need for a planned and orderly civic development public appreciation appears to have outstripped that of the City Council. It would be unfair to say that nothing has been done by the civic authorities towards the formulation of a system of town planning, but the problem has not been approached in the spirit of urgency that its importance demands, while the wider question of the role of the municipality in the scheme of regional planning has received scarcely any attention. Neglect of planning in the laying down of communications, the construction of buildings and the location of industries has cost this city many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and much more money will have to be spent before all the mistakes of the past are rectified. Because of inadequate north-south arterial communications serious traffic dislocation occurs in the two bottlenecks in the heart of the city; hill suburbs such as Kew will require to be given better approaches; the costly Albert street extension is being undertaken to expedite the flow of traffic to the outer suburbs, Taieri, and the Main South road; while north of the city a derelict strip of clay marks the line of what will be an improved and urgently required approach to Dunedin. These are a few of the problems of communications alone. The pioneers of the horse and bullock-wagon days did not —indeed, they could not—envisage an era in which the power of a 20-horse team would be harnessed within a small metal shield; and even if some did predict a roseate future for Dunedin as an industrial city they could have had no conception of the man-ner in which that industry would develop or of the mode of life that their descendants would adopt. To-day it is possible to predict with some confidence what the requirements of future generations will be, and what living standards they will expect. And the sooijpr an end is put to careless and haphazard development the cheaper will be the cost in the long run. In the first place plans must be made to bring order to the city in its present dimensions —an eminently suitable size for a modern city according to Lord Beveridge; these plans will involve, among other considerations, attention to the clearing of slums, the siting of industry, the improvement of traffic routes and the lay-out of suburbs. Provision must then be made for legitimate expansion by determining what areas shall be developed (having proper consideration for the value of agricultural land adjacent to a metropolis) and how they shall be efficiently provided with municipal services. Ribbon-development, to which Mr Paterson drew attention, is an undesirable feature that requires immediate restriction. Equally as important as the foregoing is the need for co-ordinated planning within an area in which several local bodies might be situated. The local bodies that would be represented on the planning authority for the local area would include the Dunedin City Council, the St. Kilda, Port Chalmers, Mosgiel, West Harbour and Green Island Borough Councils, and the Waikouaiti, Peninsula and Taieri County Councils. For such a wide area the services of a permanent town-planning specialist would be required, and by employing such an officer the local bodies concerned would ensure the retention of their local authority in all town-planning affairs. The problems are of such magnitude that they must be tackled with vision and courage if they are to be solved at all, and the time is long past when the first bold step should have been taken,

AN OATH OF ALLEGIANCE The proposal of the Liberal Party in Victoria that all public servants in the State should be required to take an oath of allegiance is of extraordinary present interest. Disloyalty to the King is, generally, regarded by the British peoples as a concomitant of hectic feudal days, when crowds were the football of ambitious noble factions, and monarchs were absolute so long as they commanded the biggest battalions in almost a semi-tribal social organisation. Treachery to the people, who are united by King and Government, has come to have a narrow and peculiar definition, as being confined to those few malcontents and weaklings who, in a time of crisis, may conspire with a country’s enemies. The modern traitor, so short a time ago as yesterday, as Rebecca West’s examination in her series of articles in the Daily--Times suggested, was likely to be a psychological sport, a social misfit, whose turning against his countrymen was an individual act of protest at his own inadequacy, a desperate attempt to assert his ego to an unappreciative world. But to-day a new class of traitors is at work. It consists of men and of women —who are ruthlessly determined to topple the institutions of Government in their own countries, and who claim allegiance to a foreign Power, an alien system.

The fifth column of Communists, organised and fanatical, exists in every country that remains beyond Soviet control. Its existence is a paradox almost without comparison. In New Zealand —and in most other nations—the Communist Party is a legal organisation. Its members enjoy the privileges of which those in their sprawling, bloody nonpareil beyond the iron curtain are cynically deprived. Any attempt to curtail the activities of the Communists is a denial of some part of the democratic way of life; but can any democratic community afford to ignore the treacherous elements within its very body? In New Zealand the answer, such as it is, consists of exhortations and abuse. Neither Mr Fraser’s solemn tirades nor Mr Semple’s vituperation can harm the Communists. They remain

at work, plotting, inciting, and in turn name-calling, protected by the very laws that they hold in contempt. It cannot be suggested that public service “ purges,” in the United States or Great Britain, have been effective. For one reason, proof is hard to obtain of Soviet allegiance, and can be suspect; for another, the party member and. particularly, the fellow-traveller, may be undeclared. But these people, perhaps, have their own sense of loyalty. It is legitimate that they should be asked' to assert or deny where their allegiance lies. The oath of loyally cannot of itself change a deep conviction nor reveal a hidden apostasy, but it is reasonable and logical that it should be taken at lease by those who work for the State. While democratic Governments prevaricate, as it is of their nature to do, they can. without loss of dignity nor infraefion of principle, demand of those who are employed in the business of the State that they should assert their loyalty.