CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 July 1926, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

CASS GROUNDS TREES. (To the Editor.) Sir, —The Hokitika Borough Council's decision to cut down the trees in Cass Square will no doubt meet with the opposition it deserves. The reasons given in favour of the proposal by some of tlie councillors are as humorous as they are juvenile. What are these reasons? (1) That the gasometer at the local gas-works is being affected. (2) That the bowling club would rather tho trees were not there. (3) That the night watchman’s view is obstructed by them. Lot us' first deal with reasons 1 and 2.—The Hokitika Gas Co. and the local, Bowling Club are two excellent institutions —the one conducted for private gain, resulting incidentally in a public- convenience, the other for the personal pleasure of its members, and it

the presence of trees in a park sixty feet away imperils the successful conduct of these two institutions, then - we can only conclude that their respective founders lacked ordinary business foresight, and that their successors in the management ol them must pitch their tents elsewhere. R this is not so, then our inherent beliefs respective the rights 01. private and collective .ownership must tumble to the ground. Regarding reason 3—That the nightwatchman’s view is obstructed —it this is any reason at all, then the Council in justice to everyone must take upon itself the fantastic task of creating a series of open spaces for the nightwatchman’s eye, and ol lortliwith tearing down privately owned trees, church spires, windmills. chimney toils, etc. Having accomplished this, it will then he necessary lor our city fathers to establish a by-law as follows “He who grows a tree, builds a house, erects a windmill, etc., any ol which is greater in height than any of the same already standing between or behind his property and the nightwatchman, does so at his peril.” It is with pleasure indeed that one reads the remarks of the Councillor who spoke of the rugged grandeur of the trees: he might have added that ho who plants an acorn plants for posterity, and is actuated by the loftiest of motives. That Councillor need not care one iuta for the sneers which his remarks brought forth from his less imaginative colleagues. The scathing comments' made by some of the Councillors regarding the absence of beauty in the appearance of the plantation of trees in the Square is of little importance, for the faculty of artistic criticism seldom exists in a mind in which arises also the desire to abolish ruthlessly, and for reasons so flimsy, something which has a genuine sentimental value. Constant carping at hasty and illconeeivcd decisions and absurd resolutions on the part ol the Council is an unwholesome occupation unless our resentment finds expression in definite action. Therefore let us unite, and in a body, frustrate this absurd proposal. —I am. etc., — CITIZEN.