CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES. 675 



Norwich, and innumerable others which contained objects connected with the lives of 

 the people formerly associated with the building, the latest acquisition, of course, 

 being Dar^vin's house at Down. In many eases land, timber, and other features were 

 also preserved. Particulars of other similar museums in the countrj' would be found 

 in the report of the Public Museums of the British Islands to the Carnegie Trustees by 

 Sir Henry Miers, recently issued. 



He gave these as examples of the way in which corporations and private individuals 

 could assist in carrying out the work suggested by the Chairman. 



The Earl of Crawford and Balcaeres, President of the Council for the 

 Preservation of Rural England and Honorary President of the Association for the 

 Preservation of Rural Scotland, supporting the resolution, said that the matter of 

 preserving rural scenerj was really urgent. Progress in one direction and another, 

 notably in transport facilities, had made it more and more easy for our landscape to 

 be attacked and to be injured. The reason was that, wonderful as the beauty of our 

 country was, it was of a character differing from those of foreign coimtries, where the 

 scenery was on so large and grandiose a scale that the assaults of modern transport or 

 bungalows were unable to do it harm. 



During the last few months a number of large steel masts had been erected in East 

 Fife for the purpose of overseas telephones. He was not opposed to that, but had 

 the people responsible for them taken the trouble to consult the experts and thoughtful 

 people who formed the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scenery in Scotland 

 it would have been quite easy, without impairing the scientific efficiency of the system, 

 to have shifted the masts from one point to another in such a way as to avoid injury 

 to a very charming and beautiful bit of Scottish scenery. Those good fellows, however, 

 either did not know or did not think it worth while to take the trouble to find out how 

 least ofiensive those offensive things could be made. He thought that public opinion 

 was gradually impressing itself upon the people responsible for many of those things, 

 and as time went on they would find their rulers more amenable to criticism and less 

 liable to make those gross mistakes. 



He wished also that they could persuade the right authorities to take a little more 

 trouble in the work they did in connection with thoroughfares. He could not help 

 thinking that they were a little too ambitious in road schemes. 



Their rural roads were being converted into county roads, county roads were being 

 converted into great thoroughfares, and great thoroughfares were being converted 

 into railways, and the wretched person who did not travel in an armoured car went 

 about the country in fear of his life. 



It was possible to improve our road system in such a way as to inflict no serious 

 injury upon the surrounding country. He was glad to say that people were now 

 interesting themselves in that subject, and a new society for the beautifying of roads 

 had been started. He hoped that it would not be thought that they could mitigate 

 the ugliness of a road by simply planting it with trees. 



He would like to prevent the invasion of those extremely ugly bungalows. There 

 was no reason why a bungalow should be ugly, and there again a little thought and a 

 sense of congruity would indicate that wherever one put a new building, with trouble 

 it could be made to conform less or more with the landscape, or at any rate objection- 

 able features could be reduced, and with the flux of time and the growth of vegetation 

 one could hope that it would take an honourable place in the landscape. It was lack 

 of thought and knowledge and sympathy which produced those mistakes. Our 

 municipal rulers, also, had determined to be artistic, and so the ground plans of those 

 great new suburbs had been entirely constructed from a paper point of view and not 

 at all from external or an ' eye-and-scenery ' point of view. One could not see into those 

 towns, when one was in them it was not possible to see out of them, and in no direction 

 was it possible to see through them. The houses were at every possible angle, one 

 could never see any vista in any direction, and the only thing which seemed to have 

 been arranged was that each house should look into the back garden of its neighbour. 



Public opinion was really awakened, but to be efficient it must be properly organised 

 and strengthened. He hoped that all interested in the preservation of our national 

 scenery would do their best by supporting those societies lately organised for that 

 purpose. 



Sir John Stirling -Maxwell, Bt., Vice-President of the Association for the 

 Preservation of Rural Scotland, speaking in support of the resolution, referred to the 

 terrible incubus of smoke. People who had not lived in an industrial neighbourhood, 



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