CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 133, 27 November 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. In extremely limited circles in Xew Zealand there is a disposition to regret the ugliness of our domestic architecture, its bad workmanship, and the fact that local bodies not only do not discuss it but permit flagrant atrocities to rear their heads to the skies. The Xew Zealand Institute of Architects dined in Wellington the other evening and the city engineer made a few excellent remarks on the subject of unbeautiful buildings and kindred topics. Mr. Morton remarked that tire great proportion of the work (i.e., the planning of houses and their surroundings) was mot done by architects, and that statutory power should be obtained so that both architects and builders should be comipulsorily registered. He also said that architects should also plan the gardens and general surroundings of a house, and that the <lay of the dividing back fence should pass. One speaker at this meeting spoke of the "Jack-of-all-trades" who claimed to be builder, architect, valuator, land agent, and several other things besides, and it is true that anyone can get a permit to build at present. In most cases if local building by-laws exist ti'ie authorities do not enforce them, the whole system being haphazard. It is unlikely that the people would have worried about the supreme hideousness and discomfort of Xew Zealand towns but for constant reference to the subject by lecturers and the press. In very beautiful suburban areas of Xew Zealand rows of appalling wooden boxes disfigure the earth and no one says the jerry-builder nay. In Xew Zealand -ive have architects ami engineers who are eminent in their callings, and but for the greed of the "get-rich-quick" person they would have a larger share in the planning and beautification of our towns. People who have never seen anything but the wretched make-shifts which are so common naturally feel that they are the correct thing and the aesthetic, sanitary and healthful dwelling is still in the clouds. Perhaps if it were legally impossible for any 'but a qualified architect to plan a building and for anyone but a qualified and registered builder to build one, the dreadful disfgurements that blot the Xew Zealand landscape would be no longer possible.

THE DAIRY REGULATION'S. A correspondent In tills issue has a gentle tilt at us regarding those now notorious dairy regulations, and discounts the idea that they served to "trick" electors at last election. We mean by "trick" that certain Opposition candidates misrepresented the purport of the proposed regulations. They led dairymen to believe that a tax of 5s would be levied on all milking cows; that dairymen would not be allowed to use the same cart to take skim milk homo from the factory in which t'hev took the fresh milk to the factory, and similar exaggerations. We did not like tho regulations, or, rather, the wav it was proposed to carry them out, and said so plainly. At the same time there was no need to ma>ke deliberate misstatements over them as was done. The principles contained in the regulations were sound, and made for the betterment of the industry. What did we find afterwards? The very people who had been mfeled over them were soon clamoring for their enforcement. At a conference of the Taranaki Farmers' Union at Eltham in May, 1910. the following resolutions were carried:—That the Minister for Agriculture be urged to have qualified veterinary surgeons appointed as stock inspectors, the owners of stock paying a reasonable fee when the vets.' services are professionally called in; that steps be taken to prevent the sale of unsound bulls and cows for breeding purposes; that the flovernment should pass legislation to secure purity of seeds; that more regular and systematic inspection of dairy herds be carried out; that noxious weeds be cut earlier and the Act more stringently enforced. These were the views of the representatives of farmers in conference assembled, and yet just before Opposition Parliamentary candidates roamed over Taranaki crying out against inspection and distorting the proposals of the fiovemment. And we have, too, Mr. Okey saying as he did at' Xew Plymouth that if the Xoxious Weeds Act were enforced farming in some parts of Taranaki could not be profitably carried on! On the one hand we find the Fanners' Union urging on the Government the enforcement of the provisions of this very necessary Act, and on the other we have a member of Parliament saying that if they were enforced it would spell ruination to farmers. We know this, that if the provisions are not enforced the careful, industrious farmer who is doing his best to keep his farm clean will be ruined by his careless and neglectful neighbor.

GREATER NEW PLYMOUTH. Fitzroy becomes part of the borough of New Plymouth as from Friday next, and with it' the first practical move in the realisation of a Greater New Plymouth is effected. Petitions for the merging of Vogeltown ami a portion of Carrington road into the. borough have been almost unanimously signed—we understand there were, only three or four re-fusals—-ns well as petitions in respect to Frank] ey road and Westown, where the feeling in favor of joining the borough is equally unanimous. The petitions have been forwarded to Wellington and polls of ratepayers will probably be taken shortly. The only other district required to give *«U effect to the Greater New Plymouth idea is St. Aubyn Town Board district, where petitions are to be circulated immediately. If these are as well supported as ill the other districts, there is no reason why we should not have the scheme accomplished by the end of the present year. Then we can talk trams. His Worship the Mayor is throwing his whole heart and soul into Hie movement, and 1 already lie has done a great deaj to clear the way in the St. Aubyn district, where the people are awakening to the great advantages reuniting from becoming part of the borough and to the fact that until there is a united New Plymouth the tram scheme will not be within the range of practical politics. We hope they will unani mously sign the petitions and so ex pediite the consummation of a scheme that means so much for the town as a I whole.