A NEW TOWN.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 301, 31 May 1875, Page 4

A NEW TOWN.

The Argus gives the following description of a proposed new town in the neighborhood of Melbourne: —

In our advertising columns there appeared a few days ago an invitation to the public to assist in forming a new town on a piece of land about seven miles from Melbourne. The projector is Mr Murray Ross, who owns about a thousand acres in the shire of Caulfield, and his plan is to establish on his estate a community of the usual mixed character, comprising all grades, from the well-off merchant and professional man, with his £3OOO or £4OOO villa, to the laboring man with his three-roomed cottage. Access to the proposed new township will be by threepenny omnibuses running from and to the Elsternwick Station on the Brighton railway, by good metalled roads leading into the city, and by a branch railway, the construction of which is an important feature in Mr Ross’s scheme. He intends to apply to Parliament in the ensuing session for authority to construct a line about three and a quarter miles in length, from the Elsternwick station to and through his estate. The price demanded for the land is £IOO per acre for lots suitable for gentlemen’s residences, and purchasers of such lots will only be required to pay 6 per cent interest on the purchase money during the first two years, and commence paying up the principal in the third year. If they are desirous to build, Mr Ross will assist them to find the difference between what their houses will cost and the amount which a building society will be prepared to advance. Market garden lots will he sold for £SO and £6O an acre, according to their extent, and the same facilities will be afforded to the purchasers of these as to the purchasers of villa sites. The estate consists of sandy soil suitable for the raising of vegetables. has a good deal of timber upon it, and will be sufficiently supplied with water. On an 86-acre lot in the centre of the estate, Mr Ross is erecting the beet sugarworks which were formerly in operation at the foot of the Anakies, and these will provide a readily accessible market for beetroot, which the adjoining land is well qualified to produce. By road or rail it will be practicable to carry town made manure into the new township at a reasonable cost, until advancing settlement and the establishment of local Indus-

tries create a local supply. Mr Ross says that he will be able to pay £1 a ton for beet root, which will cost 7s a ton to raise and cart to the sugar-works, and that a good crop of the root yields 20 tons per acre. A proposal to make a town all at once, complete in all its parts, and comprising inhabitants of every social grade, may appear to some readers rather fanciful, but it is, nevertheless a quite feasible project. Such things are quite common in the United States of America. There large towns are sometimes built up within a year, and are supplied with all the ordinary appurtenances of a city. The town hall and public market place, the opera house, the newspaper offices, and the polka saloons are all built and in full swing while the primeval forest still flourishes all around. It is true that cities built in one year sometimes disappear as rapidly as they arose, but that is not their fault. If they have been raised where there is really no need for a city, that is owing to error of judgment in their projectors. The building of a city or town all at once is attended with many advantages. When towns grow up slowly the plan of them has to be constantly altered in order to adapt it to growing requirements, whereas when it is made as it were at one operation, its various parts can be so constructed at first as to fit into a harmonious general plan, and so as to meet all future requirements.

Mr Ross’s scheme has this much in its favour, and other things besides. In view of the rapid extension of Melbourne, Caulfield seems likely to be in a few years quite within the area over which the residences of city workers will be distributed. By means of road and rail, it will be near enough to oity workshops to form an eligible residence for artisans, shopkeepers, factory hands, &c, employed in town, and its fine wholesome country air will no doubt invite many who are now penned up in pestilential city lanes, when the terms on which residences in it are to be obtained are as easy as has been described. Then the proposed new settlement has industrial prospects of its own. If the sugar factory that is to be established succeeds, there will be employment provided for many hands, while in raising the raw material of the manufacture, a great many more will be engaged, And the sugar manufacture will lead to the setting up of many subsidiary industries. Besides, there will be the occupation which every community creates for its own members. Mr Ross’s experiment is a highly interesting one. If it prove successful, it will not only plant a new settlement under favorable conditions, but remove from the city hundreds of families now living under conditions not conducive to health and comfort, and place them in circumstances highly favorable to both. Industrious heads of families may safely be recommended to study Mr Ross’s prospectus.