THE WAR OF SOUND.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19364, 18 September 1934, Page 8

THE WAR OF SOUND.

FORGOTTEN SILENCE. CITIES LIVE IN NOISES .OXFORD CALM IS GONE. It has been remarked that in ancient times .the gift of prophecy was ,oflen developed in the desert —in the great silences of arid spaces. Out of the philosophic calm of the wilderness came the prophet who rebuked the noisy towns. But the noise of cities in the ancient world was as nothing to the noise of the cities of to-day—-which is perhaps one reason why so many modern prophets lail to obtain a hearing. Urban civilisation is cradled in noise. In old times generals appreciated the tactical value of sound in battle, and instances thereof are common, from the cannon’s roar right back to the Maori haka; hut the war of sound is now continuous wherever traffic and industry concentrate. It is a war of attrition, from which Hie city dweller seldom escapes; and even out in the wilderness of the great silence the modern .motor goes. What is to be done about it? writes the Sydney Morning Herald. “Machinery, so increasingly potent to destroy men’s bodies b'y new weapons of war, is engaged during times of peace in destroying their spirits by new noises. As the uproar from a score of different sources grows ever louder, so indignant protest rises higher; yet hitherto not nearly enough lias been done to miLigato this intolerable nuisance. Differences of Rhythm. “Expert opinion agrees with common sense in regarding street noises as being more injurious to the nerves than industrial noises, because the former arc non-rhylhmiual, and (he human system cannot accustom itself to them as it can lo Ihe sustained din of, for example, a factory. While, therefore; society is amply juslilied in suppressing disturbing noises of every kind, it must inevitably 'Concentrate, first and foremost, on the sounds of traffic. in this direction many attempts have been made, and in many countries. From London comes news of the latest, in which city the sounding of motor horns at night is henceforward lo be an offence -punishable by tine. This, wc learn, is Ihe first slop in an anti-noise campaign, lo be carried out on scientific lines, and stress is laid on the value of the silencer, which is staled lo be now almost perfect. That will he good news to the modern world if, and only if, the use of silencers is insisted on more firmly Ilian has been done in the past, most of all in the ease of that notorious offender, the spluttering motor cycle. In Sydney, as elsewhere, good wishes will attend the London campaign, and the hope will he fostered of seeing everywhere greater activity displayed by the authorities in preserving lo the citizens their right to quietude, so sorely threatened. ‘'Society, in Iruth. lias been amazingly patient in presence of the noise nuisance, aliuosL as patient as if still remains in face of Hie death roll of the roads. But protest lias never been quite voiceless, even if tile voice lias been often a still und small one,

almost drowned in the roar of the traffic. Painfully little, however, has as yet been accomplished by expostulation. Not that the quietists (if one may borrow an old doctrinal name) have been content to rely on aesthetic or sentimental reasons only. Pleas of the Quietists. The quietists have wisely at all times laid emphasis on the aspect of public health. In July, 1928, -the subject came prominently before the British Medical Association at its annual meeting, and special mention was made of the serious position of city hospitals. (That factor, by the way, is even weightier in countries like our own, where the open door and window are more frequent than in Britain.) Later in the same year a deputation from the Medical Association and the People’s League of Health pressed the matter upon Mr Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health, who expressed a desire to have fuller data collected. Working on exactly that line, the National Safety Council of the United States of America concluded, after a three years’ survey, that noise is* a directly contributing factor in accidents, while the Noise Abatement Commission of New York decided that strident sound impairs the hearing, strains the nervous system, causes exhausting sleeplessness, and generally makes for inefficiency of work. Wc are all, of course, only too well aware of these things; but it is often useful to have even Hie clearest impressions fortified lay statistical research and convincing evidence. It has been well said that ‘noise is on the payroll of Ihc average business in Ihe form of impaired efficiency and nervous strain.’ “Notwithstanding all this, can it he said that the nuisance lias been checked? Is (here, on Ihc contrary, a country in which it lias not grown worse? Vanished Peace of the Cloister. “Three years ago a Noise Abatement Association was formed in Britain, to be followed and then joined by an Anti-Noise League. Only Jive weeks ago the two bodies, now practically one, held a conference aL Oxford —no longer as those who have visited it know, a city of cloistered calm, but a place from which Matthew Arnold’s ‘Scholar Gipsy’ would tty today with redoubled speed. The English papers which wished that conference well were none too expectant of seeing very much achieved by means of its efforts or any other agency. Yet the friends of stillness must not abandon their cause. They are not optimistic enough, whether here or anywhere else, to dream of restoring an era in which the ear .was not ' perpetually deafened by loudspeakers within doors and lay motor traffic outside. They know that there is scarcely a place left in this age of noise for “retired Leisure That In trim gardens takes his pleasure,” since Ihc klaxon and tlie changing gear can penetrate almost any sanctuary. Hut endurance and resignation have surely their limits. More and more there is need - of slrieled laws, more slringenlly administered. We must not relinquish our natural right to enjoy even in this comparatively minor sense a modicum of 'peace in our lime.’ ”