CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144097, 17 May 1913, Page 5

CO-OPERATIVE HOUSEKEEPING.

The difficulty of obtaining service has been forcing on the British householder of ordinary means tho necessity for simplifying his mode of life. The increasing popularity of tho flat system is a significant proof that the Englishman is beginning, however reluctantly, to relinquish the hallowed tradition'that'his home is his castle, an impregnable fortress whence all strangers are regarded with suspicion and hostility. But a further stride towards the breaking down of these barriers has been made by Mr. Ebenezer Howard, who has earned out an interesting experiment in co-operative housekeeping at Letchworth Garden City. Homesgarth is a cluster of’ about sixteen houses and flats, forming a quadrangle, enclosing a common garden, and -surrounded by' a colonnade. This colonnade leads from the separate Private entrances to an administrative building for tho use of all the tenants. This section comprises dining-hall, tea-room, reading-room, smoking-room, a large and well-equipped kitchen and accommodation for the stall', as well as cloakrooms, lavatories and a bicycle shed. The rents for the flats and houses range from £4O -to £64, the smallest being a bachelor’s flat, consisting of sitting and bedroprn, bathroom, and small pantry, and the largest a house with two sitting-rooms, three bedrooms, bathroom and pantry. Meals at Homesgarth are taken in a communal dining-room for about Is each. Hero, remarks a writer in the Daily Mail, who recently paid a surprise visit to the Garden 'City, “there is no suggestion whatever of the forced sociability of meals at a boarding house or small hotel. There are numbers of separate little tables, tables without tablecloths, immaculately clean, in polished oak, where each diner", may _ sit -and read his paper, or meditate in peace. It is interesting to compare the cast entailed by this co-operative housekeeping with tho cost of an ordinary private establishment. Tho sum of, say, £54, includes, it must, be noted, payment for taxes and rates, as well as for heating, lighting, upkeep, ,and service of the public or common rooms. With coal and gas for the private rooms, and individual food and housekeeping,the annual expenditure per family amounts to some £lO6, whereas the cost of an ordinary small house with a servant would come to something like £l9O, at the, least. But the financial saving is not the only thing to be considered. It is the freedom from the cares and worries of cooking and looking after the house, which its advocates point out, is one of the great advantages of “co-operative housekeeping.”