WHEN THE VANDAL GOES ABROAD.

Forest and Bird, Issue 32, 1 April 1934, Page 3

WHEN THE VANDAL GOES ABROAD.

JOHN MASEFIELD’S DENUNCIATION.

The brilliant poet and novelist, John Masefield, had occasion recently to denounce the type of vandal who desecrates the natural beauty of woods and waysides. “We have seen,” he said, “a great growth in this country of masses of hideous buildings which we miscall cities, and, as a consequence, hordes of men and women who have to live in these cities are shut away from Nature, are starved of Nature and hardly know what Nature is. In the last generation of men, machines have made it possible for these Nature-starved people to flood into the country, and, like little children when marvellous toys are placed before them for the first time, they pillage and sack and defile and cle-flower Nature hardly knowing what it is they do. As a consequence it has become necessary to have a Society for the Preservation of Rural England; to preserve rural England for those who mind and love it more than they expected. “I suppose in course of time this nation may become a user of rural England, and when that happy day comes, I have no doubt that rural England will be preserved as in the days of our fathers. Until that day comes along, sanctuaries are very necessary, as when the cities began to become big, arms of precision became possible and also cheap. As a consequence, every parish in this kingdom has at least one shooter who will blast into eternity every strange and beautiful bird that happens to come his way.”