TOWN PLANNING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1080, 9 December 1911, Page 4

TOWN PLANNING.

A FAMOUS EXAMPLE. New Zealand’s interest in schemes of town-planning is not likely to prove ephemeral, despite some checks and at the beginning. The somewhat wholesale destruction of trees in our country districts here and there has had one wholesome effect: it has tended to make the dwellers in cities value trees more highly. Once the love of trees is ingrained, the first step toward the establishment of garden cities is in a great measure assurred. So far at least our New Zealand cities have gone. There is a notably gracious wealth of trees in parts of Auckland and Christchurch, Dunedin has patches and clumps that redeem the insidious harshness of the place, even in Wellington the man who plants a tree is at length esteemed.

In England and America things have gone much farther, so that in many places there is quite a cult of tree-planting. Trees are indeed, the first essential of a beautiful city. The appealing loveliness and all this is unthinkable apart from the trees. Much of the peculiar charm of BndaPesth is directly attributable to the same cause. So in Dresden, and a dozen other historic cities easy to name. Squalour and trees can scarcely co-exist, but if squalour threatens in a modern city where trees are, men instinctively set to work to remove the squalour and preserve the trees. This is why, whenever town-planning is scientifically undertaken in England and America, we hear of garden cities. There are already many such, each exerting a definitely beneficieut influence that is felt tar beyond its borders. Amongst the garden settlements of England, Cadbury’s famous cocoa town of Bouruville easily takes first place. There the idea of the garden city goes, as it were, hand in hand with democracy. For Bouruville is a little city of workers. The term “city” is used advisedly, it stands for completeness and harmony, rather than for size. Eichfield is a city, whereas Bradford is merely a great town. Bouruville is a city in effect, because its parts are so admirably co-re!ated that the appropriate urban Uarmouy is produced. It has the true civic spirit, because in every inhabitant the enthusiasms of the community are militant. In Bouruville it has been proved that a population oi ordinary or average working folk can live in a town area, closely kept to daily task, and still live beautiful and spacious lives when work is done. It it were a Socialist settlement we should be hearing everyday how wonderful it is. Sir Joseph Ward and his party spent a day at Bouruville shortly before they left England. Speaking to the writer of this note the other day, the Prime Minister made no concealment of his satisfaction with what he saw there : “1 went all over the place,” he said, “and the more I saw of it the better pleased I was. The Cadbury people

have given practical application to all that Liberal policy in New Zealand has hoped for for years in the matter of the housing ot the worker. The houses at Bouruville are not only modern and commodious, they are beautiful, and set harmoniously among beautiful surroundings. The thing that happens is just what one might expect. The workers are cheered and invigorated by their conditions and environment. They have such self-respect that they are courteous and helpful to each other and to everybody. That is because they live under natural conditions. Beauty and odor are not artificial. The earth was made beautiful by design, and whenever we destroy or pollute natural beauty, we defeat the divine intention. The houses and cottages at Bouruville harmonise so with the beautiful trees and open spaces, and with each other, that they might almost have grown there. “We had an opportunity of seeing the great Cadbury Cocoa and chocolate works, being taken over every part of them by Mr Cadbury himself. Here again we were greatly impressed by the wisdom and foresight of this firm. It has been displayed iu the laying out of the works just as much as iu the planning of the town. As the business has developed, everything has been carried on with remarkable judgment. There is no trace of dirt or muddle, nothing to offend any decently cultivated sense. Right through, these are the cleanest works I have ever seen. Considering how many thousand people are daily employed in them, it is wonderful. There is no suggestion of a place swept and furnished for a public show. One realises that things are always just as one sees them. To see those great crowds of happy folk busily employed iu these airy rooms, with everything sweet and orderly, and the whole place running with the smoothness ot some exquisite machine —it is marvellous. In many places we see and hear of cleanliness iu essential processes of manufacture, but at Bouruville there is not a spot or smirch anywhere. “There are splendid reserves and gardens. Most generous provision is made in the matter of sports and pastimes. There are football grounds, tenuis courts, swiming baths. Nothing has been left undone that could be done to secure the health and happiness of this community of working folk. Nothiug has beeu left undone that can ensure the turning out of the articles produced iu a state of absolute purity. You have perfect order and precision, on a site that is perfect beauty. “ At Bouruville there is proof of what a private firm can do iu the interest of its workers. The Liberal Party In New Zealand has merely insisted that what a private firm can do, the State can help the people to do lor themselves. Bouruville is au object lesson. It is also au encouragement.”