TOWN GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1874, 7 October 1913, Page 8

TOWN GOVERNMENT.

d~ WORLD-WIDE MOVE FOR REFORM. CREATER EFFICIENCY AT LESS COST. When, in the course of tho next two or three months, the records of tho International Town-planning and Municipay Lifo Congress aro issued it will be found, tho " Daily News " states, that a world-wide inter-towns organisation has been established. M. Emile Vinck, Senator, who is tliq rapparteur of the municipal lifo section, lias the Brussels correspondent of that journal a very interesting outline of the work of. tho Congress and the programme for tho iut-ure. He happened to be in London when tho first London County Council elections took placo, and became so interested in tho vast municipal problems that tho Spring Gardens assembly was set up to deal with that even after being elected to tho high position of Senator he never thought of relinquishing his duties as Communal Councillor. " I have always been astonished." 110 said, " th'at 'considering lliow closely local government touches tho_ lifo of the people what little preparation men have for it who go in for municipal life. A councillor is elected on a political ticket without reference to his knowledge of the needs of tho people or of municipal administration. Thero is no school for civic life, as Professor Geddes has remarked, and a man who really wanted to .make himself acquainted with the working of municipal en--1 terprises found it very difficult to get information. Tho main thing we have done at the Ghent Congress is to establish an International Bureau which will collect from all countries in tho world information on the subject of town planning and municipal life. Permanent Bureau. The Congress had the adhesion of 14' Governments and 200 foreign towns, besides a host of influential organisations, representing town-plan-ning, garden cities, and unions of towns. The permanent bureau is to bo in Brussels, and will form ono of the 120 international associations which are nearly all attached to the Union of International Associations which havo a common homo in tho Rue do la ltegenco. Tho Union, by reason of its already extensivo library and network of foreign correspondents, will be a soured of great strength to tho Bureau in making the various investigations that are to bo completed before _the Congress meets again two years henco. "The Town-Planning Section," continued M. Vinck, "has taken up several very important subjects to study in tho interval. The Municipal Life Section will concentrato its energies upon three big questions. The last concerns tho local government of the vast agglomerations of population who do not correspond to old services which are arising everywhere, liko the great problem which confronted tho L.C.C. We shall have to study and report upon. the union, unification, and of communes. Our investigations will be mado throughout the world, so that our report may be supplemented with complete documentary evidence. "Tho second subject wo shall study is the relation of the municipality to tho land question. It involves the question of the taxation of tho land whero the municipality, is concerned, tho municipal ownership of land, and a score of considerations that aro arising in one country or another. These inquiries will be made without any reference to politics or controversial interests." World Statistics. ' "Tho third question we are inquiring into might bo called the financo of municipal services. There are gas, electric",' water services in thousands of municipalities, and yet when you try to compare the working results or the cost of them in ono country with another you cannot got any information of value because the municipalities often work on different lines, and have no general method of keeping accounts. The possession of tho comparative accounts of different towns may lead to considerable saving being made by individual municipalities. If a. town proposes to adopt a particular system, say, of lighting or olectric traction, it usually appoints a committee, at some expense, to study the working and cost of the system. The International Bureau will havo all this kept up to date. Look at tho public monoy that would he saved if 10,000 municipalities knew that they could get the very latest information about any service they required for a few francs at the International Bureau at Brussels." Munlolpal Museum. It is proposed in connection with the Bureau to make a complete town planning and municipal life museum and exhibition. The nucleus of both has been formed by Professor Patrick Geddes, and is now on view at the Ghent Exhibition. In largo part it is identical, with that which ho exhibited in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, but it was being gradually added to. M. Vinck trusts that the exhibits will be arranged to form a permanent museum of town life as well as a travelling exhibition. In addition to the models and plans got together by Professor Geddes. M. Vinck stated that the International Bureau proposed to collect scenes of town life in cinema films and lantern slides for exhibition. People might say: "What interest is there in a municipal life exhibition or picture show?" "When I tell you," he said, "that throughout the whole of Belgium thero aro not two reading rooms in connection with public libraries like you have all over England you can imagine what interest that one feature of town lifo has to us!"