UGLY HOARDINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 504, 6 November 1928, Page 7

UGLY HOARDINGS

U.S.A. IS ALSO A VICTIM Entitled “Road Barbarism,” a leading article in a recent issue of the “Saturday Evening Post” deals with a subject of close interest to New Zealand “It must be apparent to everyone who studies our roadsides from the seat of his motor-car that there are two opposing forces at work upon them —one making for charm and beauty, the other for ugliness and unsightliness. “Just now the latter force has the upper hand, and many of our roadside vistas are going from bad to worse. The situation is rather discouraging for those who love rural beauty and are compelled to behold the ugly and tne tawdry in spite of all they can do to make their own places attractive. “To a population on wheels, roadside views are as important as those from one’s front windows; yet we can scarcely boast a single long arterial highway which does not proclaim that, as far as good taste and public decency are concerned, we are still in a state of barbarism. “Our main-travelled roads are as good as those anywhere . . . but we have allowed ourselves to be robbed oC much of the joy of our highways bypermitting their wholesale disfigurement. EVER WITH US “The billboard nuisance is ever with us. There has been great rejoicing over a recent decision by the Supreme Court of the State of Kansas sustaining the statute recently adopted by that commonwealth forbidding billboard advertisement along the highways. One or two other States have passed similar laws; but there appears to be very little in the way of vigorous nation-wide sentiment directed against the defacement of rural scenery. “Many thousand miles of our highways are plastered with advertising signs both great and small. “The smaller signs are perhaps the more objectionable, from the fact that a score or two are often displayed at the same stand or tacked on trees and add their din of colour to that of the noisy billboards. “ ... In the very act of reaching out to grasp the beauty of the roadside, we destroy it.”