CITIES OF SUNLIGHT.
THE housing problem is one that is ever with us. It was with us both in town and country in tla eighteenth century, and Mr. Whitbread's Poor Law Bill of 1807 especially aimed at remedying the deplorable condition of the cottages of England at that date. Despite all that has been done since then, the problem is still one that fills the mind with horror. The population persistently outgrows remedial action, and the centripetal tendencies of production and commerce create centres that have none of the normal attributes of social life. In the case of insects such as bees and ants the housing problem is remedied immediately it becomes acute by an organised and automatic system of transmigration. The in- stinct of these creatures tells them that the first duty of social life is to maintain the efficiency of the race, and that the race ceases to be efficient the moment that it is ill-fed and ill-housed. The human race has the same instinct, and has for thousands of years poured from east to west in search of fresh woods and pastures new as the result of defeat, con- quest, famine, and disease. The race with the keenest capacity for colonisation has been the surviving race, and England's capacity for expansion in all directions has been one of the most marked signs of its vitality. But in the development of social institutions, as truly as in the ascent of man himself, we find that there arrives a day when instinct must be replaced by reason. There arrives a time, to take the case now under discussion, when the instinct for expansion must be replaced by a reasonable solution of the problem that lies behind all expansion,—the problem of how to live under happy, wholesome conditions within a limited area. Now that problem is, apart from the instinct of expansion, insoluble unless, not one or two, or one or two thousand, persons apply them- selves to the problem, but unless the whole nation faces the diffi- culty. Housing legislation is a good thing; building laws, sanitary laws, burial laws, poor laws, are all necessary and admirable efforts, but they are the efforts of the few, and, however well administered, are totally incapable of solving a problem which in itself will never be fully solved while there remains one family personally ignorant of the things that belong to its peace. As Mr. Haldane in his recent volume on "Education and Empire," noticed in another column of our issue of to-day, points out, social problems will never be solved until the education problem is solved. Educate the people, and the social questions will answer themselves. It is not because we disregard and would minimise the value of legislative efforts that we say this. The work that the Legislature can do is of enormous value, but there can be no doubt that the work that the people can do for themselves, home to home, manufactory to manufactory, city to city, is final. Therefore we welcome the efforts of societies such as the Garden City Associa- tion, which has just held its conference at Liverpool, and which is pledged to a programme that will, if success- ful, do much to relieve the pressure of town life. We do not expect miracles at once; we do not think that in a few months, or even in a year or two, we shall see the great centres of industry turned into garden cities; but we do believe that the education of the people into a desire for better things is a work of abiding value that makes for righteousness and national health. The cry "Back to the land" has now no significance to the people we would have go back, or to the people that we would fain induce to remain In agriculture. The housing problem in the country drives men and women to the towns; the housing problem in the towns drives men and women to destruction. The Cities of Dreadful Night swallow up their thousands, and the world cries aloud for some Midas-touch that will turn these cities
Into Cities of Sunlight. Can the thing be done? Before answering that question let us look for a moment at some of the difficulties in the way. These difficulties may be grouped into two,—absence of interest in local government, and in local education and culture. Mr. Lever, the chairman of the Garden City Association, claims that these difficulties have been overcome in his remarkable settlement known as Port Sunlight. They are certainly very real difficulties in London. The extraordinary absence of interest in local government is hard to account for, but the fact remains that the ratepayers are as a mass totally indifferent as to the class of men who represent them on the Borough Councils, and are equally indifferent as to the amount and manner of expenditure of the rates. Indeed, a large propor- tion of the ratepayers are practically unconscious that they pay rates at all, since the rates are paid by the slum landlord, who adds them, with a liberal percentage for his trouble, on to the rent. This is at the root of the indifferentism as to local government which is one of the most discredit- able features of London municipal life. In Mr. Lever's settlement at Port Sunlight the items for rates are kept distinct from those for rent, and fluctuate naturally, with the result that "the villagers, who formerly took no interest in local affairs, had formed one of the strongest ratepayers' associations in any part of the country." Again, in London the popular interest in education is at a very low ebb. The proportion of voters who vote at a London School Board election is very small, and the ratepayers take not the slightest interest in the Board-schools in their vicinity except to regard them as a nuisance that materially diminishes the value of house property. At Port Sunlight we find a very different story. The day schools and Sunday schools alike are a valued part of the activity of the community. These two difficulties are, therefore, capable of solution, and it would be well if all classes of the community would strive in their respective parishes and boroughs to solve these diffi- culties by the simple process of performing their obvious duties as citizens and voters.
Assuming, therefore, that the average voter has realised the necessity of interest in local government and in local educa- tion, it is necessary to see a little further into the economic difficulties of the case. This necessity being realised, no effort will be spared to make the conditions of life better. But we are still faced by the fact that the population is fearfully congested, and that expansion, not in the old instinctive sense, but in the newer reasonable sense, is wanted. In other words, the manufacturers must leave the towns, and place their works in a position where their workers will have the chance of securing those conditions of life that mean both efficiency and happiness. Mr. Lever and Mr. Cadbury both declare that in their industrial settlements at Port Sunlight and Bournville respectively it has, as a matter of business, actually paid them to create, at vast coat, conditions of life that ensure the happiness, health, and social vigour of their workpeople. Mr. Lever regards it as the one aspect of profit-sharing that benefits not only the workpeople, but also their wives and children. We do not doubt that his belief is well-founded. It must, in the long run, be detrimental to trade for workpeople to live in surroundings that vitiate character and sap the foundation of all labour,—health. Therefore we are inclined to welcome the step that is about to be made by the Garden City Association, —the formation of a Pioneer Company to secure a suitable estate on which the policy of the Association—the policy ex- hibited at Bomnville and Port Sunlight—will be developed. Of course, all will depend upon the manner in which the company is worked. But assuming that it is conducted upon rigid business principles, we see no reason why it should not be the pioneer of a new and valuable development of social and industrial life.
There is one aspect of the movement, however, which seems to us to present considerable difficulty, and which, we hope, will receive the earnest consideration of those who are aiming at a reasonable solution of the over-crowding question. Our objection to these communities is that they do not contain a sufficient admixture of the various grades of society. The municipal unit of social life should contain representa- tives of the various classes of labour,—the manual labourer, the mechanic, the man of science, the scholar. A society of men all employed in one factory is capable, doubtless, of much social happiness, but we are of opinion that it would not be a very complete society. We look with something like distrust on large municipal schemes that would create vast artisan com- munities outside of and around London. A ray of sunlight under the spectroscope contains many colours, and the Cities of Sunlight in the future must contain all sorts and conditions of educated men and women.
Previous page
