THE FUTURE CITY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 104, 29 May 1909, Page 3

THE FUTURE CITY.

PORT SI'NLIGHT AND PROSPEKITYSIIAIUNG. MODERN TOVVNIPLANNING. (By Charles C. lleade.) The banks of the Mersey present one of the most remarkable contrasts in human inhabitants that exists in the world to-day. Nowhere are the differences of environment, with all its attendant influences of mankind, more s'triking.y demonstrated. Here, are two pictures. Down in the valley, wedged in iwtwecn the walls of great factories, are rows and rows of three and four-storied houses, blackened with dirt and smoke, and punctuated by endless chimney-pocs straggling desperately above the slated roofs. There are neither gardens nor yards—only housvs, back to back, gazing gloomily into narrow courtyards, or winding through cramped and crooked streets where washing hangs night and day—drab splashes of color that mock the dingincss. The courts and streets are filled with children and children's voices revelling round the one tap that probably supplies forty householders. Tile voice.-', sometimes shrill, sometimes j jhusky, sound far into the night, for the, I call of sleep in the slum comes laic.' There is neither sentiment nor joy in the. 'scene. The might of poverty, the squa.orj of the surroundings, transfix the thoughts with other things. But wh"ie , are the parentsr Down nt the street corner there is a low building conspicuous by its tawdry lights' and the voics . within. The state of the atmosphere i; shown lly (he moisture that runs do.wn I the window-panes. All 'life is within i save for a seedy figure that scrapes outside on a cracked and broken-hearted fiddle. Vou may go in if you choose. It is not. wise to do so, not that the people within are not good-hearted and hilarious enough—heaven knows'. It is just a question whether you can stand the .atmosphere—the hot, thick atmosphere that nobody seems to mind. Hut just a moment—there! The swing doors open and a figure lurches out on to the pavement. The scene- inside is visible for a few moments. Beneath the dim and smoky lamps men and women—women with babies wrapt in shawls and children clinging to their draggled skirts —are packed against a counter four or , live deep. There is a glitter of bottles behind them. Mugs of foaming beer are lifted on high, and glasses are handed back to those in the rear. The scene i* I charged with animation. There aro shouts, laughter, and snatches of song, but there is a note of overpowering disorder, of human madness, in that congested mass of men anil women drinking —drinking lif<» and soul to the reeling, swaying dark of squalor. That is a picture of a Liverpool slum.

A woodland dell banked with flowers | winds into one of the daintiest of open! spaces. The foliage seems to float through the. trees in the sunlight. On] all sides at odd intervals, peering into the depths' of this sylvan loveliness, arc houses quaint early-English houses, with picturesque gable and lattice, red tiles, and panelled just as Shakespcftie knew the charming' old town of Strat-[ford-ou-Avon. But here we are in a I modem village, built 'but a few years,

taking all the hest elements out of a picturesque past and applying them with the science of modern town-planning to the home beautiful. There are children in white and colored pinnies romping under the trees and in the sunlight. Each house rises out of a bed 01 flowers. Nature and (architecture go hand in hand, and everywhere is a vista or a glimpse of henuty. Twelve o'clock whistles from a factory somvwherc beyond the glade, and presently the treclined road is full of men and women, youths and girls. They troop by to their bojires, smiling and talking. Everybody is clean and bright-faced. There is a vitality in each step that makes its own grace. They roam with the houses through parks' and gardens and radia.it thoroughfares. Their village is a dream of woodland splendor where life and

labor move amid beauty and content- ! ment. That i 6 a picture of Port Suni light, one (if England'!- model villages planned by .Messrs. hover liros. on the opposite, side of the Mersey, a few miles from Liverpool and the blatant reality of its slums l . The Port Sunlijrht estate, comprising some two hundred acres, consists of a series of well-planned faetories, docks, railways, ami workers' dwellings, besides >i large mim'ber of buildings devoted to the religious, educational, and soeia'l welHieing of its .inhabitants. Tt is laid out on the best principles of muder.i town-planning. The housing conditions am almost ideal. Each building is well constructed. :pictnresi|Uo, well situated, and let at a rent that .averages about 5s a week. In every case there is a garden patch nvilli trees' in front of the house, ,nml at the back nre extensive allotimrni gardens. It is tlk> realisation of tin back-to-the-land cry in England. Watei is laid on and supplied free of charge Tuition is given by a practical gardener and for (lowers and -vegetable* growi in the village prizes arc awarded anau ally at the horticultural shown organise! by the controlling firm. In the'village itself there are a theatre, a public lib rary. technical and elementary school ii lecture-hall, a museum, boys' and girls institutes, and employees' provident si ciety, scientific, literary, and mutual in: provement societies, a'.telephone s'ysten fiiv brigade, ambulance society, b'owlh aud tennis greens, swimming baths, fool bull ground*, rille range, gvmnas'mu hospital. inid church. ,„ all 'this tire: is to be seen nothing of the monotonoi] anil depressing rows of brick and moi tar, the hard, distressing regularity c des'ign that is common to so many Enj lish and colonial cities. Port Sunlight in fet, sets n standard above the mo< ern suburban area, as well as providin healthy homes and refining inlluenees I the environmet of its four thousaif workers. The enterprise is described b .Mr. Lever himself as "prosperity-sliai ing' —the best means he can find of shai ing "profits with his workpeople. He ha recently stated that the linn gets a n turn from the money invested in th better health and the consequent in creased industrial clliciency of t(ie work ers. .Mr. Lever, iu .-hurl, iias given pnn tical recognition of the relation of hous ing to industry. In order to realise how far a privat firm can, side hy side with its eommci cial success', make enlightened provisio for its workers, the institutions of P»r Sunlight are well worth studying, Th village is no Utopian project'any inor than the other model communities r England like Lctclnworth, l.lanipstca<: Ealing, lJourneville, Leicester, and Jiul are. It is a connuereial project designs to secure and develop industrial elli eieney. J'ort Sunlight :proves that m<and -women working eight hours a da can turn out nioiv a nd better work thai those laboring ten or eleven hours i other concerns and livfcig under poo housing conditions. Prominent amoi

advantages enjoyed is that of the Kmployees' llcnelit Fund, which is provided entirely by the compaiiv. To every employee retiring after at least twenty years' service at the age of 03, and 80 if

a ieinale, is paid a yearly allowance of .toll per year. Similar provisions are made for those retiring through illhealth, or to the widow and children of a deceased worker. A Holiday Cluh is I in operation by .which a fund' is an'o-' matically created for workers when the ' time for relaxation arrives. Faithful I service is acknowledged -he Hie presentation of -a gold watch, together with a I long-service badge. The Port Sunlight j Order ol Conspicuous .Merit j* awarded in cases of personal bravery. The. male workers labor -IS hours and the female ■t,i hours per meek. Free tram and train tickets are provided for those who come ! lioin a distance. Cash prizes are award-1 eil hi the soap works itself for the best) suggestions' for labor-saving devices and' increased minfort for the workers. These are a few of tin. more interesting and suggestive phases of life at Port | Sunlight. The 'spirit of Hie workers U

, said to Ik. very appreciative, although L there are times when n more restless spirit- arises' against whas has -been r li'r il "Ihe benevolent autocracy - ' ot Hie linn. The drawback to the scheme ~ is that many of its advantages which the workers receive cannot Ik- translated into terms of pounds, sliillhur.s, and pence-at least, not nl present'. Thai is what seems lo he in the future between labor and capital. The prosperity sharing scheme as- il works at present h t no guarantee that the demand of Into', for a lull shave in the wealth that it { creates is being fulfilled. Hut compared" , with what exists for lh,» majority oi j Uritish workers to-day. Port Sunlight is 1 a guarantee that a considerable share ol | its prosperity is going into the health o the happiness, and surroundiio's of its. r workers, it is the half-way house to a k absolute scheme of co-operation or co- „ partnership between the laborer and the t employer, which seems to !,» a powerful | alternative to State control, but that h His yet to develop and be given prac- « tical d-nionstration. Judging by the o opposition of the trade unions and labor I generally lo Sir Cliristo r Furness', ,• scheme of co-partnership, that realisa-' 1 ion is a long way otf. 'l'lie ileceniralisation of the crowded ureas' ot the modern city, the limitation

a gale in the English Channel, Ho hurried back to London, and, finding that i was fitting out the emigrant ship Duku of Portland, he asked to be allowed to go out by that vessel. 1 placed two cabin* at' his disposal. They told me afterwards that when the ship reached Auckland tin- bishop showed his seamanship and his knowledge of the liarbur by p.-.i.iiug the vessel safely into port in the absence of a regular pilot. I had to provision each of the emigrant ships for a four or live months' voyage. That will give you an idea of what emigration meant in those days. Not many ..of the pionc. rs could find their way back to England, Going to a new country meant going lor good. I doubt if the present generation can appreciate what a barrier the ocean was before the days of steam, anil what a severance of home ties emigration meant for the early pioneers of Australasia.

WHY HE STAYED BEHIND. "One of the keen disappointment* iif my life was that 1 never went out myself to Now Zealand. 1" had intended going in 1542. .My elder brother William had alreadr gone out, and had .writtei to nie lo follow him to Nelson. But fore I could leave there came news that my brother had lost his' life by drowning while folding a river, and alter that my mother would not iiear of any other inei'ilier of the family going to New Zealand. Jim although 1 have never been to New Zealand, I was closely identified with its early life as a colony, was associated with the founding of it, and have lived to see it become a Dominion. In the early days New Zealand was aiI ways in my thoughts, and the widjr i colonial sympathies and interests that I have since acquired had their root in my early dreams of New Zealand, under the inspiring influence of that great man Gibbon Wakefield. A WAKEFIELD MEMORIAL.

'"J /am ghid they are going to put up_ a memorial in London to Captain Coo>, the discoverer of New Zealand, but as a corollary to that I 6 hould like to «cc in New Zealand a memorial to Gibbon Wakefield, the founder of the colony. I want to see a full-length statue in iront of the new Houses of Parliament in Wellington,.with the one word 'Wakefield' on the pedestal, as in the ease of the 'Maedonald' statue in Toronto. I have already written to Sir Joseph Ward, Sir Roliert Stout, Dr, Hockcn, and others in the Dominion, and ha»c had replies expressing sympathy with the project. One of the Dominion memhers has promised lo bring the matter before Parliament when the House meets next dune, and meanwhile T have formed a strong committee here in London to help the scheme along. Lord Ranfurly, Lord Glasgow, and Mr. Alfred Lyttelton are on the committee, and a hundred guineas has been promised by Mrs. Storr, a sister of the late Mr. Allom, who died recently in Auckland. Mr. Allom used to be Gibbon Wakefield's private secretary. Talking of memorials, a bust of Gibbon Wakefield stands in the Colonial Oflice to-day. And that strikes me ai very curious' when I remember how.be was hated by the colonial ollicials of his day. and how he used to literally shake his fist at the Cojonial Oflice. But the echoes of the strife have long since died away, and the great work that Wakefield did is recognised to-day and justly honored." Correspondent' of Dunedin Evening Star.