NATURE AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 203, 29 August 1938, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

LIBELS OF UTOPIA A MUCH-USED WORD

(Edited by Leo. Fanning.) How many of the people who casually use the word “Utopian” in condemnation or contempt of a proposal or ideal, which seems to them fantastic or unattainable have read the book “Utopia,” written by Sir; Thomas More, more than four cen-‘ turies ago. It was first published in ; Latin in 1516, but was soon trans-j lated into English. It was really a i work of genius. The author clearly j showed the advantages which could ■ come from an intelligent management.; ; ci natural resources and a well- • regulated organisation of society so ’ that waste of man-power or material l could be avoided and the standard of | living could be raised. Inhabitants of i , New Zealand and many other coun- j ( tries have much to learn from}, “Utopia” for the benefit of themselves > ( and posterity, for Sir Thomas More s ( prescription for happiness was a com- , monsense friendly working alliance of nature and man. Here is a passage on gardens:— , “They set great store by their gar- j dens. In them they have vineyards, . all manner of fruit, herbs, and flowers, . so pleasant, so well furnished, and so , finely kept, that I never saw things more fruitful nor better trimmed in j any place Their study and diligence herein comes not only of pleasure, but also of a certain strife and con- ( tention that is between street and street, concerning the trimming, husbanding, and furnishing of their gardens, every man for his own part. And verily you shall not lightly find in all the city anything that is more commodious, either for the profit of the citizens, or for pleasure. And therefore it may seem that the first fount er of the city minded nothing so much as he did these gardens.” The Pity Of It! New Zealanders, ponder well on the following extract from the annual report of the Department of Lands on scenery preservation:— “For many years the department has struggled with the most inadequate financial resources to acquire private areas that should be owned by the State. Some good work has been accomplished against heavy odds, but it had proved impossible to undertake any extensive plans of land acquisition. If only 1 per cent, of the money expended on main roads could oe allocated for the purchase of bush' areas along those roads the position would be very different. The department hop'- that its repeated representations o.i this subject will in time bear fruit, and that the time will shortly arrive when it will be recognised that a reasonable expenditure of public funds in the acquisition of bush areas is not only a good investment, but also an absolute necessity if the Dominion is to maintain its reputation as a country possessing natural features of outstanding charm and interest.” I

As several Ministers of the Crown, particularly the Minister of Lands (the Hon. Frank Langstone) and the Minister of Internal Affairs (the Hon. W E. Parry) are enthusiastic in their advocacy of the conservation of native forests, it is reasonable to hope that the funds available for that necessary purpose will be substantially increased. A Question of Values. Here is a thought for plenty of New Zealanders—a piece of Aldo Leopold in “Bird Lore”:—“Consider a trout, raised in a hatchery and newly liberated in an over-fished stream. No one would claim that this trout has the same value as a wholly wild one caught out of some unmanaged stream in the high Rockies. Its esthetic connotations are inferior, even though its capture may require skill. “To safeguard this expensive, artificial, and more or less helpless trout, the Conservation Commission feels impelled to kill all herons and terns visiting the hatchery where it was raised, and all otters inhabiting the stream in which it is released. Artificialised management has, in effect, bought fishing at the expense of another and perhaps higher recreation; it has paid dividends to one citizen out of capital stock belonging to all.” Traffic Rules of Penguins. On one of the lonely outlying islands of New Zealand—the Bounty group— Mr. H. Guthrie-Smith found much interest in the observation of penguins. “All other forms of life were dominated by the penguin horde,” he wrote in “Sorrows and Joys of a New Zealand Naturalist.” “Their number must have run into millions on the whole group, there must have been many hundreds of thousands visible on our small section of island alone. They stood on the land, they floated on the washpool, they streamed along the tracks, they never ceased to climb out of the sea. Only between the washpool and the land, a distance maybe of two or three hundred yards, were no birds visible; that intervening space was subaqueously traversed. We could mark their landward set, we could note, too, at their quays of ingress and egress the double stream .of clean and dirty birds, the one ascending purified from the bath, the other coming down guanoed and defiled. If my memory serves me these two currents held rignt and left as scrupulously as London city’s mid-day throng. Where a track narrowed, the flippers otherwise loosely worn were tightly compressed, the- clean birds drawing aside to avoid contact with the unwashed, behaving as we ourselves do in passing a sweep cr coal-heaver on the pavement of a street.”