The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3rd, 1902. GARDEN CITIES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11727, 3 September 1902, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3rd, 1902. GARDEN CITIES.

Are we in New Zealand going to follow the lead of oWler lands and build up, in the name of cities, closely packed, congested, and more or less insanitary centres of population? The question is one not* lightly to be considered. Already the population of the four principal towns has assumed considerable proportions, and it may be taken for granted that the vyite of increase will be yearly accelerated. The same may be said of the secondary boroughs. It is true that our legislature and our municipal, authorities are not altogether unmindful of their responsibilities lr. this connection), but iiti is also true that but little has so far been done to prevent undue congestion. Here in Wangianui, surrounded though we are by ample room for extension, there is a marked tendency to crowd as tihickity as possible into the cramped space of the borough proper. Up to the present no apparent evil has resulted. As yet, notwithstanding its rapidly increasing population, Wanganui is still blessed with an atmosphere of suburban freshness. Ten years hence, however, our population, which, including the suburbs, we now tflaim as 10,000, may have increased to 20.000. Looking to the futur*. then, it is surely wise to take such steps as will (prevent the growth of the evils so manifest in the large centres, of the Mother Country, especially when it is considered that such precautions, by assuming reasonable living and breathing room to every citizen, would benefit the present as well as future generations. In this connection), there is much of interest in a small book entitled "Garden Cities of Tomorrow" (London, Swan, Sonneschein and Co.). This intending work .contains not only a practical exposition of the best methods of decentralising a congested population, bu* a statement of the successful experiments* which have haye x already been made in the Mother Country for the redistribution of .people and industries under conditions conducive to the health, happiness and well-being of the former^ and favourable to the more advantageous prosecution of the latter. Mr Howard, the author of the book just referred to, formulates, his scheme thus: — He proposed to buy an estate of 6000 acres, costing £40 per acre, in England, and to raise the purchase money by the issue of mortgage •debentures, bearing £4 per cent, interest, to be defrayed out of ground rents based on the annual value of thh land, which would yield, he estimates', a surplus, to be handed over to the central

council of the new municipality to meet the cost of roads, schools, parks and other

public works. The garden city is to cover 1000 acres in, the centre of the estate, leaving 5000 to be retained as a permanent belt of agricultural land surrounding the town. One oi the advantages of such ?.u arrangement appears to be this: —That a diversity of employment would be provided for the urban manual workers, who could pursue the labours ©f husbandly during the summer months, and follow their own trade or- calling during the resit of the year, just as they do in some of the cantons in Switzerland, where expert artificers are looking after their pastures, cattle and dairies at one season of the year, and are fabricating toys, watches and wooden carvings in those months when out of door labors are impracticable. The transfer of industries from great cities to country districts is already taking place on a large scale in England. Many y«airs age a famous printing finm, having its head office in London, had most of its books printed at Beetles, in Suffolk; and the Whittdngham presses and paper mills at Chiswick date back for three quarters of a century. More recently, it appears, some of the great metropolitan publishing firms have most ef their book work done in country towns, like Aylesbury, St. Albans, Tunbridg©, Dunstable, and Watford. Certain branches of manufacture, it has been found, icannot be carried out in great centres of population, owing to the impurity of the

atmnosiphere. This is said to be the case with -colour and photographic printing; and the chief manufacturers of photegiraphio paper, as al!so the printers on it, are now to bo found in country places, like Watford. AshsteaU, Elstree, Rickmansworth and! West Drayton. Blacking manufacturers, ■again, ihave become compulsory exiles from London, as it appears, on account of the excessive rates of insurance exacted upon premises situlated in •crowded districts; while the makers of jam are not unlikely to follow the example of-Messrs Chiversi, <at Histon, in Cambridgeshire, who have established a factory close to the spot on which they grow the fruit. Among the manufaoturiHg firms who have taken .part in this movement for decentralisation aara Messrs Cadbury, Lever Brother^, and'Milnes and Co.-. These have bought freehold sites in the country, and, while otaining plenty of elbow room for their industrial operationsl, have been enabled, at the same time, "to provide bright .and cheerful homes for their workmen at half the rents, of inferior houses in large towns, yet with the addition of gardens or altotimente, and of recreation grounds, swimiming baths, and indoor clubs." "Nothing," says Mr Cadbury, of chocolate fame, "pays the manufacturer Det/ter," andl he adds, "it would be the greatest boon to th© toiters of this country if it could be carried out to an ylarge extent." "But th« toilers are not the only ixsrsonis who Benefit by translation from a crowded city to more "open and airy localities in the country; for the employer of their labour is a considerable gainer, ;'ndiirectly, for a man's industrial productiveness is measurably increased by improv id health amid greater cheerfulness, by his superior animation, and by the more generous dietary table he is enabled to command by the 'divedabn of some of the money he previously paid to a civic landlordl and the tills of the butcher, aker arjd greengrocer. As tests; of the practical value of Mr Howiard's preposition for the establishment of garden cities he can point to the two which have been founded on a commercial basis by the enterprise of a couple of manufacturing firms as the commencement of a "new hope, a new life and a new civilisation" at Bournville and Port Sunlight, near Birkenhead, respectively. These have received the stamp of

success, andi encourage the expectation that the time is approaching when a satisfactory solution will be arrived at of what has been called "the most vital problem in the social life of England;" where onewirro: of an artisan's earnings not infrequently pass into the pockets of his landiont in the shape of rent, and one-half of this is described as being a contribution towards the cost of th« land on which his house is built. And nobody will particularly regret the Josses whic hmay accrue to ground landlords and lessees by the decentralisation ot tbedr present tenants and the consequent diminution of the "unearned increments."