PRESERVING BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 27 September 1930, Page 8

PRESERVING BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND

For gome years past, protests have been heard concerning the rapid alterations being made in the English countryside, and, in the opinion of Jiose who resent the encroachment of “modern improvements,” this change is none for the 'better. At the Eccleston Guild House recently, Mr Herbert Morrison, Minister of Transport, formally opened what is known as the “Beautiful England” campaign. The special object of this movement is to do away with acres upon acres of urban areas which have become unsightly and dismal blpts upon the Landscape, and unfit for human habitation. The thing is to make a clean start. Plans are under way for the planting octrees beside (the, new highroads being built through the country, and for the seeding clown of gmssy werges alongythe route defined, whilst it is particularly urged that she materials required for electrical developments and roadside stations shall not be such as offend the gaze or tend to destroy the general appearance of the land^cfipe.

But this is only part of the campaign in question. T}ie main and ultimate purpose is tdi-preserve as far as possible the historic associations and mild beauty of the rural scenery which foi; so many, generations has been the glory of England, and a source of delight to all visitors to the country. Fof months past, the “Daily Telegraph” has .beep-publishing articles and pictures showing how many of llie most famous beauty spots of England are to-day threatened by a ruthless, vandalism, t,reckless of all considerations save real estate commercialism and building (rentals. And rightly it is urged that unless something is done to halt this desecration, the England of shady lanes, thatched cottages, rose gardens and all that belongs to the ancient haunts of peace in the island “set like a giem in a silvei sea,’ will be wiped off the map. i. It is on all counts to be fervently hoped that such a change will never occur. Nobody who knows anything about the English landscape would like to think of the scene being converted into a vista of . roadside gas stations land glaring modern bungalows. Commercialism has its limits, and beauty has its just claims. We may call the poetic feeling for nature vague, indefinable, elusive, an aesthetic mood, or what we please. But it has for ages' been the inspiration of British poets and artists, and has entered most deeply into the life and habits of the '.English people. What, indeed, has exercised a greater influence in shaping their best traditions and their characters? We thrust the day may never come when Gray’s “Elegy” vvill be merely an inked memoir of things vanished. As said by an American writer about England: “There are few tilings in life better worth living for than the pleasure "of starting out 'on foot for a long day amid the beauties which nature spreads before her true lovers by every hedgerow arid brook arid hillside ,i England.” This is true. Her landscapes are even better pictures than Constable or Cox ever put by pencil upon canvas, and this is saying very much indeed. The “Beautiful England” campaigners have a just cause.

Happily, they have succeeded in inducing the Government authorities to reserve some of the famous beauty spots as national memorials, to be kept free from modern encroachments and preserved in theij’ natural wildness and poetic appeal. And although, as Mr Morrison remarked, “the seekers of a beautiful England have a. terrific task before them, ’ all lovers of the elements beyond material things, of the influences which have lasting appeal and value to the human spirit, will wish them full success in their laudable endoavouro.