The Christchurch Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1934. TOWN PLANNING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20233, 17 February 1934, Page 8

The Christchurch Star

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1934. TOWN PLANNING.

PUBLISHED BV New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND London Rcpresenatirm > R. B. BRETT & SON NEW BRIDGE HOUSE, 30/34 NEW BRIDGE STREET! LONDON. E.CA

qpOWN PLANNING will undoubtedly shortly call for certain restrictions upon the freedom of individuals in respect to property, and therefore, if it is to be put into effective operation, public opinion must be educated to the benefits to be derived from it. Unless citizens are persuaded to accept the necessary individual limitations, even the best schemes will not be adopted without some social discord. This is one useful purpose served by the Town Planning Institute’s present exhibition, but its aesthetic attraction should be balanced by a consideration of the fundamental economic problems that must be solved in the process of city development. Of course, a great step forward is made when the public realise that the enjoyment of pleasing architecture and beautiful squares and gardens yields an economic benefit as real, though less assessable, as the returns of public utilities. But the basic problems of town planning concern public finance and community economies. They touch the organisation and control of public services, such as transport, and the regulation of housing schemes. They entail a consideration of the causes and effects of population growth and urban concentration, and all residential fluctuations in the suburban expansion of a city. And for this reason the town planner must be more than an architect and a surveyor; he must also be an economist, and one that aims at the highest standards of health and the general good with the least possible financial outlay and the least possible disturbance of existing property rights.

“ HAIG DEPOSED.” TV/I"ANY piquant disclosures are -*-*-*- evidently made in the new biography of Field-Marshal Earl Haig, extracts from which have been published in the “ Star ” this week, but earlier historians treated as an open secret the fact that Mr Lloyd George once deposed Haig and ruled that he must obey the orders of Nivelle, head of the French Army. Early in February, 1917, following discord over plans for the coming Allied offensive, Mr Lloyd George openly sided with the French Commander-in-Chief. The trouble developed, and on February 24, 1917, the British War Cabinet decided that the British Armies in France should be placed under Nivelle, forming an army group on the Western Front; but neither this decision nor the communications with the French which preceded and followed it were disclosed to Haig or Sir William Robertson, who were surprised and shocked. Later a conference was held at Calais, when a less far-reaching agreement was arrived at, binding Haig to act under Nivelle’s orders during the impending offensive, unless those orders seemed to imperil unduly the British Army. In that case, Haig must report his divergent action, and the reasons for it, to the British Government. Mr Lloyd George, so it is stated, held the view at that time that Haig was not capable of directing to full advantage the British effort in the field, and he wished to see that power transferred to a leader of quicker and more imaginative intelligence. How lie was disillusioned, how Nivelle’s “ brilliant short cut to victory ” was shattered, and how Nivelle was superseded by Petain are matters of history. All that remains to be added to this account of a comparatively unknown phase of tile Great War is that Haig throughout the crisis remained cool, resolute and unshakable. “ Beyond question,” one writer stales, “ no man showed or maintained greater self-control in the face of the storms of criticism and the undercuirents of intrigue.”