Ploughing the Sandys
By ROBERT BLAKE HE united and concentrated genius of Bedlam and Colney Hatch would strive in vain to produCe a more striking tissue of absurdities. Yet this is the policy . . which is gravely recommended by senile vanity to the favour- able consideration of a people renowned for common sense. . . . And why? For this reason and no other: to gratify the ambition of an old man in a hurry.'
Thus wrote Mr. Sandys's celebrated grandfather-in-law com- menting upon Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill. Change two adjectives, for Mr. Sandys is not yet senile, and the words are an apt commentary upon his 'solution' of the Oxford road problem. In order to close Magdalen Bridge and to achieve a modest reduction in the traffic of the High, Mr. Sandys proposes to drive the worst of all conceivable roads through Christ Church Meadow. It will have to be an embankment in view of the floods and it will run immediately south of the Broad Walk, ruining one of the loveliest views in Europe. It will utterly destroy the beautiful War Memorial Garden by St. Aldate's; thus contriving in a single stroke to insult the dead who fell for their country, as well as the living and the genera- tions to come. It will damage beyond repair a setting of irre- placeable splendour, serenity, and charm.
As a solution to Oxford's greatly exaggerated traffic prob- lem Mr. Sandys's plan is ludicrous. If there is any agreement in Oxford on anything it is that the problem is caused by the 'fact that only one bridge exists to connect east and west Oxford. Mr. Sandys's solution is to block that bridge and build another one a few yards south of it. The only possible defence for the plan is that it will shift traffic out of the High. But will it in fact do so? Traffic will continue to be able to move between Mr. Sandys's new road and the High via an extended version of Rose Lane. Even if traffic in the High were halved, the ruin of the Meadow would be far too high a price to pay.
The worst feature of all is that the damage done by Mr. Sandys's plan—the Meadow embankment—can never be re- versed, whereas such good as it does—by blocking Magdalen Bridge—can be reversed all too easily After all, what are Ministers sub specie ceternitatis? They are but transient and embarrassed phantoms (though admittedly it would take a lot to embarrass Mr. Sandys). They are here today, gone tomor- row. No one can bind his successors. It is a safe bet that within a few years the citizens of Oxford, who will undoubtedly resent with bitterness the closure of their main thoroughfare, will agitate to have Magdalen Bridge reopened. Who can be sure that a future Minister will not bow to the storm? We shall then have the worst of all possible worlds—a ruined Meadow and a High filled with traffic.
Mr. Sandys's conduct throughout has been marked by an extraordinary combination of brashness, ignorance, vanity and vacillation. Whether or not he has exceeded his ministerial pOwers—a matter on which legal opinion will be taken—he has certainly exercised them in a manner wholly contrary to the spirit of the constitution.
After all, Charles I did nothing illegal when he levied ship- money, nor did Lord North at the time of the Boston Tea Party, nor did Sir Thomas Dugdale in the Crichel Down affair. That did not prevent the first losing his head, the second America, and the third his job. The unfortunate City Council has every cause for complaint. Two years ago all was calm. City and University were agreed that no inner road should be built until they had seen the effect of the outer by-passes and intermediate roads which even today exist only on paper. Then Mr. Sandys ordered the Council to propose inner roads with a strong hint that he wanted one through the Meadow. The Council did so, only to be told that the Meadow was inviolable for political reasons (it would be interesting to know what these were and why they no longer prevail) and the Minister suggested the idiotic Lamb and Flag road. The long-suffering Council reluctantly agreed to put this one forward. Mr. Sandys having brooded on it for six months did the one sensible thing that he has done at any stage in these proceedings : he rejected his own plan. But, alas, only to return once again to the Meadow. If the Council has any spirit at all, it should simply refuse to accept the latest directive and let the Minister incur the full odium of using his reserve powers—if they exist—to force his insane plan through.
The political background of all this remains obscure. Did the Cabinet agree or did Mr. Sandys act on his own? One thing is clear: it is no accident that this decision has appeared right in the middle of the Suez crisis. I cannot believe that Mr. Sandys would have got away with it if the Cabinet had been less preoccupied with far graver matters. Not that the battle is yet lost. Far from it. Every possible legal and constitutional device will be used in the struggle. To adapt another phrase of Lord Randolph Churchill, Christ Church will fight and Christ Church will be right.
What of Mr. Sandys in all this? He has displayed a bland complacency which suggests that he scarcely realises what a storm he will have to weather. Like General Joffre he has, in the words of his famous father-in-law, 'preserved his sangfroid to an extent which critics have declared almost indistinguish- able from insensibility.' It will indeed be a tragedy if Oxford is sacrificed to the ambition of a middle-aged man in a hurry. But let not other university cities be unduly smug. They too have roads and beauty spots. Having wrought his fell work on Oxford, Mr. Sandys, so rumour has it, is already, like Zuleika Dobson, examining his Bradshaw for the trains to Cambridge.
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