TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 141, 11 December 1929, Page 12

TOPICS OF THE DAY

A view of Hataitai from the air, published in 'yesterday's "Evening Post," recalls memories. Thirty years ago most of the picture would have been bare land. A subdividing syndicate paid a subsidy for a tramway tunnel, and Hataitai began. At first it was thought that the scheme was too big. Soon it was known that the single track tunnel was too small. Then started the long struggle for a new full-width traffic tunnel, commitment to which was only finalised this year. If the aeroplane were now to fly with its camera' over Karori, the picture would again be full of memories. More than twenty years ago Karori subdivisions went off at half-cock, and new streets went back to grass. But there is no false start about post-war Karori. What has happened there in the big basin between the hills is another transformation like Hataitai, but greater. With its increasing momentum in recent years, Karori development has clinched the case for communications. There have been jealousies and ups and downs, but Karori is securing its modern traffic route piecemeal. Here, as well as the eastern suburbs approach, whole hillsides are on the move, and even the great hole in the valley of the upper Kaiwarra is shrinking. . The eastern suburbs, the western suburbs, and Lower Hutt have grown, and still grow, before the eyes. They are the most interesting motion picture in Wellington, screened gratis.

While Melbourne has a system of selling car-parking space under a licence (with a scale of fees running from daily to annual), Sydney, it is cabled, has prohibited car-parking in the chief thoroughfares. The suggestion seems to be that, in the heart of the city at any rate, the Sydney authorities are throwing on to private enterprise the onus of providing storage for motor-cars. It does not

follow, however, that Sydney is behind Melbourne in realisation of the importance of the motor-car to retail business. Though the authorities in each city may be equally alive lo the trading significance of the motor vehicle, the difference in the capacity of the streets might well dictate a more arbitrary policy toward the | motorist in Sydney than in the better laid out Victorian capital. If' the motor vehicle is as important to the takings of shops in the streets of intensive traffic as is supposed, will the shopkeeper influence on Sydney main streets be willing to lose the parks, or will it stimulate private enterprise to provide for car accommodation on private property? Sydney's action may be in part designed to -force this issue lo a practical test. Private enterprise can provide the accommodation required— at a price. In the past Sydney has been proud of the initiative and keenness of its block associations. They will now have something to think about.

What would be equivalent in the Labour Party to a voice from the Left was raised at a meeting in Auckland of the Council of Christian Congregations. The Leftists were the Y.W.C.A. and the V.M.C.A., and their remarks on the monotony of church services would have interested Mr. William Sunday. According to the Y.W.C.A. spokesman, Miss Begg:

The trouble with sermons was that ministers told them what to do when they really wanted to know what the minister himself would do.

This "trouble" is a very old one. To be a teacher or a preacher is one thing; to be an exemplar is another. No doubt if there were more exemplars there would be less need for preachers; or, rather, the preaching job would be easier. Is the Young Church of the future likely to demand a reversal of time-honoured practice, by reasoning from conduct back to doctrine instead of from doctrine to conduct? Certainly a religious body that could prove superior average conduct through the rank and file of its members would not need to-expend so much energy in justification of doctrine. By their fruits they shall be known—but how shall the fruits be judged? In his [reply, the Rev. E. P. Blamires took a simile from infantile hygiene. The Church, he said, needed a Plunket movement. But the Plunket babies do not sit in judgment on the Plunket nurse. These Church babies do.