TOWN-PLANNING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 95, 5 December 1911, Page 2

TOWN-PLANNING.

A FAMOUS EXAMPLE

SIR JOSEPH WARD’S VISIT TO BOURN VILLE.

Now Zealand’s interest in schemes of town-planning is not likely to prove ephemeral, despite some checks and rebuffs at the beginning. The somewhat wholesale destruction of trees in our country districts here and there has had one wholesome effect; it lias tended to make the dwellers in cities value trees more highly. Once the love of trees is ingrained, the first' step towards the establishment of garden cities is in a great measure assured. So far at least our New Zealand cities have gone. There is a notably spacious wealth of trees in parts of Auckland and Christchurch; Dunedin has patches and clumps that redeem the insidious harshness of the place; oven in Wellington the man who plants a tree is at length esteemed. In England and America, things have gone much farther, so that in many places there is quite a edit of treeplanting. Trees are, indeed, the first essential of a beautiful city. The ap-

pealing lovlincss and intimate human charm of Paris, its haunting vistas and exquisite atmosphere—all this is unthinkable apart from the trees. Much of the peculiar charm of BudaPesth is directly attributable to the same cause. So in Dresden, and a dozen other historic cities easy to name. Squalour and trees can scarce ly co-exist; but if squalor threatens in a modern city where trees are, men instinctively set to work to remove the squalor and preserve the trees. This is why, whenever town-planning is scientifically undertaken in England and America, we hear of garden cities. There are already many such, eacli exerting a definitely beneficient influence tly.it is felt far beyond its borders. Amongst the garden settlements of England, Cadbury’s famous cocoa town of Bournville easily takes first place. There the idea of the garden city goes, as it were, hand in hand with democracy. For Bournville is a little city of workers. The term “city” is used advisedly. It stands for completeness and harmony, rather than for size. Lichfield is a city, whereas Bradford is merely a great town. Bournville is a city, in effect, because its parts are so admirably co-related that the appropriate urban harmony is produced. It has the true civic spirit, because 'in every inhabitant the enthusiasm of the community are militant. In Bournville it has been proved that a population of ordinary or average working folk can live in a town area, closely kept to daily tasks, and still live beautiful and spacious lives when work is done. If it were a Socialist settlement we should be hearing every day how wonderful it is. Sir Joseph Ward, and his party spent a day at Bournville shortly before they left England. Speaking to the writer of this note the other day, the Prime Minister made no concealment of his satisfaction with what he saw there. “I was all over the place,”- he said, “and the more I saw of it the better pleased I was. The Cadbury people have given practical application to all that Liberal policy in New Zealand has hoped for for many years in the matter of the housing of the worker. The houses at Bournville are not only modern ana commodious; they are beautiful, and set harmoniously among beautiful surroundings. The thing that happens is just what one might expect. The workers are cheered and invigorated

by their conditions and environment. They have such self-respect that they are courteous and helpful to each oilier' • and' ‘ ’to" everybody. That is because they live under natural conditions. Beauty and order are not artificial. The earth was made beautiful by design, and whenever we destroy or pollute natural beauty, wo defeat the divine intention. The houses and cottages at Bournville harmonise so with the beautiful trees and open spaces, and with each other, that they might almost have grown there. “We had an opportunity of seeing the groat Cadbury cocoa and chocolate "works, being taken over every part of them by Mr Cadbury himself. Hero again we were greatly impressed by the wisdom and foresight of this firm. lb lias been displayed in the laying-out of the works just as much as in the planning of the town. As the business has developed, everything has been carried on with remarkable judgment. There is no trace of dirt or muddle, nothing to offend and decently cultivated sense. Right through, these are the cleanest works that 1 have ever seen. Considering how many thousand people are daily employed in them, it is wonderful. There" is no suggestion of a place swept and furnished for a public snow. One realises that things are always just as one sees them. To see these great crowds of happy folk busily employed in these airy rooms, with everything sweet and orderly, and the whole place running with the smoothness of some exquisite machine —it is marvellous. In many places we see and hear of cleanliness in essential processcss of manufacture, but at Bournville there is not a spot or a smirch anywhere. “There are splendid reserves and gardens. Most generous provision is made in the matter of sports and pastimes. There are football grounds, tennis courts, swimming baths. Nothing has been left undone that could be done to secure the health and happiness of this community of workingfolk. Nothing has been left undone that can ensure the turning-out of the article produced is a state of absolute purity. You have perfect order and precision, on a site that is perfect

beauty. . “At Bournville there is proof or

wliat a private firm can do in the interest of its workers. The Liberal Party in New Zealand has merely insisted that what a private firm can do, the .State can help the people to do for themselves. Bournville is an object-lesson. It is also an encouragement.”