LONDON CHANGING HANDS.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 July 1920, Page 4

LONDON CHANGING HANDS.

SOME MAMMOTH BUILDINGS. LONDON, May 14. London changes more slowly than any other great capital. Peking, and Tokio have undergone a more radical transformation during the past twenty-live years. 'That is part of London’s charm. Hut London is now on the eve of big developments, many due to the incoming of new men and new wealth, some from the very ends of the world. You Jind evidences of them everywhere. Walk down Kingsway, London’s newest thoroughfare, and notice the American names there, such as Armour ; Gaston, Williams and Wigmore— Gaston, the newest of New York’s great millionaires, who laid the foundations of his fortunes in London in the early days of the war—lugersoll and Eastman. Bush, who dominates New York with the Illuminated dome of his super-sky-scraper, is making ready to dominate the finest site in business London at the oortom of Kingsway. The incoming of the Continentials resembles the old Huguenot immigration. The Huguenots lied from religious persecution, bringing us new industries and wealth; the new Continential arrivals, fleeing from Bolshevism and unrest, are also bringing, many of them, qualities that will help to make London still mo-e great.

The amusement industry is being revolutionised. Two powerful groups, mainly composed of South Africans, Jnnadians, and Americans, are fighting to secure dominating sites for the erection of picture palaces finer than any 'O far known in Europe, holding from 5,000 to 6,000 people, sumptuously fitted and with orchestras that will nttrici the music lovers who now go to the Queen’s Hall.

The next great expansion will be in hotels. Even when all the old hotels are released from Government control we shall not have nearly enough, especially since London has become the world’s political ynd social centre as well as its commercial capital. The unit of si/e will probably be the thousand-roomed hotel, and the managements of Gwe will aim at securing a large per eennge permanent residents. The great increase of Lon Itn land values, which has come during the pi st year because of the rush of population •here, is going to make re-buildi ig on a large scale an economic necessity. Business men will not he able to afford to maintain small establishments on costly sites. An idea of the new building line of control in London can he •obtained from the new block of flats now ucanng completion at the corner of Park-lane and Oxford street.

The increase of land values will have another effect. There are in the older suburbs many square miles of streets which arc in a process of steady de-. terioration and decay. It has not been worth the while of the owners to rebuild them so far, but with rents and values going up they will soon find tiur, u. no longer pays them to keep things as they are. Some of the old houses rented on lease for about £IOO a year are fetching from £4OO to £SOO a year let out in floors. New buildings on tlieir sites will yield from five to ten times as much. A great development is coming in education here. Every higher educational institution in. London to-day is overwhelmed with applications for admisson; London University, the hospital schools, and the technical schools cannot cope with the flood. Men who formeily went to Vienna and Berlin for postgraduate courses are now floc.king to London.

London will become in the immediate future the greatest centre of medical education in the world. The University of London has to-day the opportunity of attracting to itself the pioneer students

of live continents us the University of Paris now does. The Regent street Polytechnic has the chance to make itself the rival of the Boston "Tech.” and to take the place Charlottenlmig once held. The world’s students are clamouring at our doors for admission. There are three drags on London’s coming advance. The first is the confusion and the parochialism of our local government; the second is the shortage of trained men in the building trade, which prevents new premises from being built; the third is our leasehold system. London could, if proper town-planning took place ,accommodate the whole oi its coming additional milliohs with very little extension into the beautiful country lying immediately outside. Tftre is an amazing amount of waste and half-used laud in the very heart of London where every rood ought to he worth a king’s) ransom. One of the linest sites in West London, for example, behind the triangular groups of streets facing Hyde Park, by St. George’s Hospital, is largely covered with, stables. London wants not so much stretching out as tightening up and levelling up. No one wishes to see our streets become a copy of a half German, half American city with the lines of barrack buildings that one sees in New York or Hamburg. There is no need for that.