Dunedin in need of 'urban beautification'

The Otago Boys High School shooting team, winners of the Silver Bugle competition for 1914. Back...
The Otago Boys High School shooting team, winners of the Silver Bugle competition for 1914. Back row (from left): Cadet R. Ritchie, Bugler A. Lockhart, Cadet D. Park and Cadet L. Ritchie. Seated: Cadets E. Smith and C. Tucker, Sergt. R. Park, Cadet L. Gillman, Sergt.-major H. Montgomery. Front: Cadet M. Gray. - Otago Witness, 1.4.1914. Copies of picture available from ODT front office, lower Stuart St, or www.otagoimages.co.nz.
The proceedings yesterday at the annual meeting of the Dunedin and Suburban Reserves Conservation Society once more indicate very clearly the practical and commendable nature of the activities of this organisation.

This town continues to be in need of the efforts in the direction of urban beautification which the society is able to put forward.

The extensive reservation known as the Town Belt, which a certain type of citizen would doubtless be only too glad to see closely built over, is an invaluable legacy left by the founders of the city, and supplies an admirable ground-work for operations designed to improve the appearance of the town.

Through its possession of the Belt, Dunedin will, from some little distance at all events, always present a picturesque appearance.

But it is not yet a Garden City, despite the fact that a great deal of industry has been expended and good taste exercised in the improvement of both public reserves and private properties, and if the resources of the Reserves Conservation Society were many times greater than they are and its activities proportionately more extensive, it would never lack a very wide field to work upon.

If Nature has been kind in respect to the situation of Dunedin, there has not been, on the part at any rate of those who control our local affairs, an adequate appreciation of what is sightly and a sufficient distaste of what is sordid and unsightly.

But for the corrective supplied by the Conservation Society the general appearance of the city today would be a great deal less satisfactory than it is.

There are towns in the dominion which suggest a keener sense of the artistic on the part of the citizens as a whole in the matter of susceptibility to environment than Dunedin does.

Yet some of them perhaps do not possess any particular society that exercises special activity in such matters. The Reserves Conservation Society has undoubtedly, however, accomplished splendid work, for which the community is deeply indebted to it.

Thanks largely to its agency, many vacant spaces have been converted from a state of depressing ugliness to a condition that is most pleasing to the eye.

• The Mackenzie County Council, at its meeting on Friday (the Timaru correspondent of the Christchurch Press states), discussed the circular from the Hon. James Allen, Minister of Defence, asking for suggestions from local bodies as to the best means of providing work for religious and conscientious objectors, in lieu of military training.

Mr F. R. Gillingham, the chairman, and the other members of the council, heartily supported the department in its efforts.

One member suggested that objectors should be given stone-breaking work to do for the council, and another suggested gorse-grubbing. After some discussion it was decided to recommend to the Minister that objectors be given stone-breaking or gorse-grubbing, on the piecework system.

The council undertook to do the supervision, if necessary. The Chairman remarked that if the objectors saw a heap of stones to be broken, their consciences would very soon harden.

Under the council's proposal, objectors would be given a certain amount of work to do at current rates, and they would have to get the work done in the prescribed time. To prevent shirking he suggested a penalty for default.

- ODT, 7.4.1914.

Add a Comment