The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1929 THE FOLLY OF EXAGGERATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 694, 20 June 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1929 THE FOLLY OF EXAGGERATION

NEW ZEALAND now inevitably suffers the penalty for having made in foolish exaggeration too great a sensation of its worst, but by no means a calamitous, earthquake. The world is ringing with hyperbolical stories of disaster and the misery of a stricken people. It will take a long time to overcome the economic mischief that has been wrought abroad by the hysterical messages from New Zealand representatives of overseas newspapers.

From out the mass of nonsense that has been written and spoken in other countries about the results of the sharp seismic disturbance in a corner of the South Island last Monday there has emerged some evidence of an appreciable sentiment. Consider, for example, as one of the best features of a ready sympathy from far lands, the quick offer of a Vancouver newspaper to open a Canadian subscription list for the relief of New Zealand earthquake sufferers. It is impossible to imagine what sort of a thrilling and heartrending narrative was sent to Canada and the United States, but it may be taken as certain that the North American newspapers would make a “sob story” out of it. Once some of them had discovered that this Dominion was an island country and not merely a suburb of Sydney, they soon would make a first-class horror of its quaking experience. Apart from that characteristic enrichment of events and sensational phenomena, it is at least good to know that sympathy in Western Canada was spontaneous and generous. There, Empire folks were thinking in a practical way about the apparent dire needs of stricken New Zealanders, and thinking as quickly as the New Zealand Government. Fortunately, there is no necessity for accepting the' sincere generosity of Canadian people, though there is need enough for an exercise of similar practical sentiment by the hundreds of New Zealand communities which got the full shock of the earthquake only in their newspapers. Let this Dominion hail its sister in the Northern Hemisphere with the gratitude that makes for closer friendship. Apparently, real distress was aroused in London by the publication of alarmist stories from this country about, “its record earthquake.” Has it not been reported that a Toolev Street merchant cabled to a Dunedin firm anxiously seeking a full report of the disaster and special information about its possible effect on dairy supplies? Was the man sympathetic or was he looking for a fortune out of the butter market? Then a London journal, looking for comfort in calamity, and deeply emotional over the vivid picture of distress in “The Shaky Isle,” found pride in believing that New Zealanders, as sturdy British stock, would stand up to disaster and carry on, fortified by the. resourceful qualities of their administrators. All that, of course, is really splendid sentiment, though it happily happens to be merely exaggerated nonsense. The obvious answer to it and other emotional comment is the simple fact that there will be no postponement of trots and races and the sport that makes a sturdy British stock. Though the earthquake was serious enough for its victims and sufferers, and calling for real sympathy and national generosity in providing immediate relief funds, it is the plain duty of New Zealanders to look at the upheaval and its results in the right perspective. Tn the past, score of years or so many countries have been shaken badly by earthquakes. The following table, covering seismic disasters all over the world since 1906. shows in chronological order why there has been no justification for hysterics in this country, and also where there is more reason for gratitude than for grief and sensatiofi:—Lives Lost. Lives Lost. San Francisco .. .. 452 Central Italy 29,978 Valparaiso 1,500 Guatemala City .. .. 2,500 Kingston, Jamaica .. 1,100 Java .. .. .. .. 5,100 Sicily and Calabria .. 76,483 Mexico 3,000 Costa Rica 1,500 Kansu, China 200,000 Turkey 3,000 Japan 100,000 New Zealand (1929), 13 lives lost. Need more be said about the folly of exaggerating earthquake shocks in New Zealand?

DEVONPORT’S WATERFRONT

DEVONPORT’S plan to make the Queen's Parade waterfront the most beautiful half-mile in New Zealand is ambitious, but none the worse for that. Before it can be realised, some private as well as public effort will be necessary. Some of the dwellings facing the chosen half-mile scarcely fit in with such a conception, and the prosaic, utilitarian lines of the new ferry wharf will always be a handicap. It may not be possible to induce the Harbour Board to plant sweet peas over the walls of its ugly offspring, or to relieve its severity with window-boxes; but if the ferry wharf is beyond redemption, private dwellings are not. Private owners are often unconsciously influenced by their surroundings, and drab sections of the properties along Queen’s Parade possibly owe their condition to the fact that the Parade has long been, as Mr. G. Minchin described it on Tuesday, “the Cinderella of Devonport.” It is to be that no longer. Private owner's are co-operating with the Devonport Borough Council in the execution of the plan to make their heritage a place of beauty. The council itself has in past years grasped its responsibilities well, and the improvements it has already effected are a reflection of its practical foresight. The plan toward which it is now working will bring the whole foreshore from the Naval Yard to North Head into line with that in the vicinity of the wharf, where the lawns, palms and pohutukawas give the entrance to Devonport a charming setting. The promoters of the wider movement should consider whether, even hereabouts, some slight improvements may not. yet be made. Some of the vistas are broken by ugly structures. That popular amenity, the “jazz board,” might have been more discreetly placed. It is not always possible to subordinate the practical to the aesthetic, but the former should at least be held to unobtrusive proportions.

The response of interested citizens at Tuesday’s public meeting shows that the council in its campaign will not lack outside support. Any financial contributions will, of course, not only assist a worthy civic scheme, but. also will help to keep ex-service men in work. In the meantime other Auckland local bodies might well follow Devonport’s lead. Except at St. Heliers and Ivohimarama. where-conspicuous foreshore improvements have been made, the tendency in Greater Auckland has been to neglect the beautiful waterfront, or permit it to be ruthlessly marred. From the general appearance of the foreshore wherever the hand of man has touched it. the visitor might well assume that Auckland has done its best to desecrate one of its greatest assets. The Waitemata is worthy of a lot more effort and enthusiasm than have been conceded it in the past. And along the seaward coast, of the North Sh«ie. too. the esplanade principle might well be adopted.