A MODEL VILLAGE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 97, 22 April 1909, Page 4

A MODEL VILLAGE.

We recently referred to the profitsharing scheme formulated by Mr Lever, of Sunlight soap fame. The Sydney Morning Herald _of recent date contains -a very interesting article, descriptive of Port Sunlight, the birthplace of the soap of that name. Mr Chas. G. Reade is the author of the article, and he has given a most instructive account of the enormous business carried on by Lever Bros., Ltd., on the banks of the Mersey. Here, he says, may be found one of the most remarkable contrasts in human habitation to oe found anywhere. In one locality are to be seen rows and rows of blackened houses, with neither gardens nor yards—" only houses, back to back, gazing gloomily into narrow courtyards, or winding through cramped and crooked streets where washing hangs night and-.day—drab splashes of colour that mock • the dinginess. The courts and streets are filled with children and children's voices revelling round the one tap that probably supplies forty householders." In another place is a village of quaint early English houses set beautifully in trees, "taking all the best elements out of a picturesque past and applying them . with the science of modern town-planning to the home beautiful." Well-dressed children play among the trees; every house has its flower-garden; the mid-day whistle sounds somewhere and troops of men, women and children go down a tree-lined road to their homes. This is the model village of Port Sunlight, planned by Messrs Lever Bros, who employ the- inhabitants. The housing conditions are almost ideal, splendid provision is mad© for recreation and, mental improvement, and there is even a Port Sunlight Order of Conspicuous Merit, awarded in cases of perspnal bravery. "The village is no Utopian project any more than the other model communities in England like Letchworth, Hampstead, Ealing, Bourneyille, Leicester, and Hull are. It is a commercial project designed to secure and develop industrial efficiency. Port Sunlight proves that men and women working eight hours : a day can turn out more and better work than those labouring ten or eleven hours in other concerns, and living under poor housing conditions."