[1] Dr. Barwise, Medical Officer of Health for the County Council of Derbyshire, giving evidence before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, on 25th April, 1894, on the Chesterfield Gas and Water Bill, said, in answer to Question 1873: “At Brimington Common School I saw some basins full of soapsuds, and it was all the water that the whole of the children had to wash in. They had to wash one after another in the same water. Of course, a child with ringworm or something of that kind might spread it through the whole of the children.... The schoolmistress told me that the children came in from the playground hot, and she had seen them actually drink this dirty water. In fact, when they were thirsty there was no other water for them to have.”
[2] This was the average price paid for agricultural land in 1898: and, though this estimate may prove far more than sufficient, it is hardly likely to be much exceeded.
[3] The financial arrangements described in this book are likely to be departed from in form, but not in essential principle. And until a definite scheme has been agreed upon, I think it better to repeat them precisely as they appeared in “To-Morrow,” the original title of this book—the book which led to the formation of the Garden City Association. See Appendix.
[4] This word, “municipality,” is not used in a technical sense.
[5] Portland Place, London, is only 100 feet wide.
[6] The electric light, with cheap motive power for its generation, with glass-houses, may make even some of these things possible.
[7]See “Fields, Farms, and Workshops,” by Prince Krapotkin, 1/-, and “The Coming Revolution,” by Capt. Petavel, 1/-, both published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co.
[8] The question of the form of Leases to be granted is one which is being carefully considered by the Land Tenure Section of the Garden City Association.
[10] See Report, London School Board, 6th May, 1897, p. 1480.
[11] No one is, of course, better aware of this possibility than the Professor himself. (See “Principles of Economics,” (2nd ed.) Book v., Chap. x. and xiii.)
[12] “London has grown up in a chaotic manner, without any unity of design, and at the chance discretion of any persons who were fortunate enough to own land as it came into demand at successive periods for building operations. Sometimes a great landlord laid out a quarter in a manner to tempt the better class of residents by squares, gardens, or retired streets, often cut off from through traffic by gates and bars; but even in these cases London as a whole has not been thought of, and no main arteries have been provided for. In other and more frequent cases of small landowners, the only design of builders has been to crowd upon the land as many streets and houses as possible, regardless of anything around them, and without open spaces or wide approaches. A careful examination of a map of London shows how absolutely wanting in any kind of plan has been its growth, and how little the convenience and wants of the whole population or the considerations of dignity and beauty have been consulted.”—Right Hon. G. J. Shaw-Lefevre, New Review, 1891, p. 435.
[13] “Birmingham rates are relieved to the extent of £50,000 a year out of profits on gas. The Electrical Committee of Manchester has promised to pay £10,000 this year to the city fund, in relief of rates out of a net profit of over £16,000.”—Daily Chronicle, 9th June, 1897.
[14] This individual is known to Assessment Committees under the name of the “hypothetical tenant.”
[15] “It has been calculated by Mr. Neale” (“Economics of Co-operation”) “that there are 41,735 separate establishments for 22 of the principal retail trades in London. If for each of these trades there were 648 shops—that is 9 to the square mile, no one would have to go more than a quarter of a mile to the nearest shop. There would be 14,256 shops in all. Assuming that this supply would be sufficient, there are in London 251 shops for every hundred that are really wanted. The general prosperity of the country will be much increased when the capital and labour that are now wastefully employed in the retail trade are set free for other work.”—“Economics of Industry,” A. and M. P. Marshall, Chap. ix., sec. 10.
[16] This principle of local option, which is chiefly applicable to distributive callings, is perhaps applicable to production in some of its branches. Thus bakeries and laundries, which would largely depend upon the trade of the locality, seem to present instances where it might with some caution be applied. Few businesses seem to require more thorough supervision and control than these, and few have a more direct relation to health. Indeed, a very strong case might be made out for municipal bakeries and municipal laundries, and it is evident that the control of an industry by the community is a half-way house to its assumption of it, should this prove desirable and practicable.
[17] Since “To-Morrow” was published, various Companies have been formed by the Public House Trust Association, 116 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W., with the object of carrying on the trade on principles advocated by the Bishop of Chester. A limited dividend of 5 per cent. is fixed; all profits beyond are expended in useful public enterprises, and the Managers have no interest whatever in pushing the trade in intoxicating liquors. It may be interesting also to observe that Mr. George Cadbury, in the Deed of Foundation of the Bourneville Trust, provides for the complete restriction of the traffic at the outset. But as a practical man, he sees that as the Trust grows (and its power of growth is among its most admirable features) it may be necessary to remove such complete restrictions. And he provides that in that event “all the net profits arising from the sale and co-operative distribution of intoxicating liquors shall be devoted to securing recreation and counter attractions to the liquor trade as ordinarily conducted.”
[18] “Only a proportion of each in one society can have nerve enough to grasp the banner of a new truth, and endurance enough to bear it along rugged and untrodden ways.... To insist on a whole community being made at once to submit to the reign of new practices and new ideas which have just begun to commend themselves to the most advanced speculative intelligence of the time—this, even if it were a possible process, would do much to make life impracticable and to hurry on social dissolution.... A new social state can never establish its ideas unless the persons who hold them confess them openly and give them an honest and effective adherence.”—Mr. John Morley, “On Compromise,” Chap. v.
[19] The position was so stated by Mr. Buckingham in “National Evils and Practical Remedies,” see Chap. x.
[20] A similar line of argument to this is very fully elaborated in a most able work entitled “The Physiology of Industry,” by Mummery and Hobson (MacMillan & Co.).
[21] “Integral Co-operation at Work,” A. K. Owen (U.S. Book Co., 150 Worth St., N.Y.).
[22] I may, perhaps, state as showing how in the search for truth men’s minds run in the same channels, and as, possibly, some additional argument for the soundness of the proposals thus combined, that, till I had got far on with my project, I had not seen either the proposals of Professor Marshall or of Wakefield (beyond a very short reference to the latter in J. S. Mill’s “Elements of Political Economy”), nor had I seen the work of Buckingham, which, published nearly fifty years ago, seems to have attracted but little attention.
[23] Though Mr. Herbert Spencer, as if to rebuke his own theory that State control is inherently bad, says, “Political speculation which sets out with the assumption that the State has in all cases the same nature must end in profoundly erroneous conclusions.”
[25] Buckingham’s scheme is set forth in a work entitled “National Evils and Practical Remedies,” published by Peter Jackson, St. Martins le Grand, about 1849.
[26] I hope it is not ungrateful in one who has derived much inspiration from “Progress and Poverty” to write thus.
[27] Clifford’s “History of Private Bill Legislation” (Butterworth, 1883), Introduction, p. 88.
[28] See, for instance, the opening chapter of “The Heart of Midlothian” (Sir Walter Scott).
[29] The chief reason for this is that agricultural land as compared with city land is of vastly larger quantity.
[30] It is scarcely necessary to give instances of what is meant; but one that occurs to my mind is that this assumption of the continued growth of London forms one of the fundamental premises of the Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Water Supply, 1893. On the contrary, it is satisfactory to note that Mr. H. G. Wells has recently entirely changed his views as to the future growth of London (see “Anticipations,” chap. ii. ). Read also “The Distribution of Industry,” by P. W. Wilson, in “the Heart of the Empire” (Fisher Unwin), and Paper by Mr. W. L. Madgen, M.I.E.E., on “Industrial Redistribution,” Society of Arts Journal, February, 1902. See also note on page 31.
[31]See “Reconstruction of Central London” (George Bell and Sons).
[32] Woman’s influence is too often ignored. When Garden City is built, as it shortly will be, woman’s share in the work will be found to have been a large one. Women are among our most active missionaries.
[33] Through the kindness of Messrs. Lever Brothers, a conference is being arranged for July this year at Port Sunlight, a most admirably planned industrial village in Cheshire.
[34] Now published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co. (London), under the title “Garden Cities of To-morrow.”
