HOUSES OR OPEN SPACES?
[To the 'Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] " Sut,No member of the ,L.C.C. is likely to forget what. the what, cause ,of the slum-dweller owes to The Spectator, which 'gave the public the truth before it hecame faihionable. Your comment on the Hackney Marshes problem is therefore of no ordinary. interest and vv'eigPt!
The dilemma of the L.C.C. is not however between ,"..appro- printing . a recreation-ground" and " building upwards in suitable blocks." . The Council is building—and will continue to build—upwards in suitable blocks in suitable places and to a suitable extent. , It is obvious that a substantial portion of its programme will be work of this kind. The Council is not really in a dilemma at all. The two desirable objects you refer to—slum-clearance and preservation of playground-- do not clash : they fit in with each other.
Your paragraph ,overlooks the fact that the L.C.C. scheme, while contemplating the appropriation of 30 acres of East End playground in one place contemplates also the provision of another 30 acres in another place--this other place being in the' existing East End. Not only so, but it provides 50 acres further out -which will -serve that limited but substantial number of citizens to whom a move further out of Stepney, &c., will be practicable and welcome. The L.C.C. scheme aims at providing for the East • End both at its- centre and on its fringes not less but substantially more open space than it has at present; and this is sought to -be done by making use of legislative pro'visions passed some two years ago and hitherto regarded as a dead letter.
If anyone cari'bring forward a scheme which will secure for the ,East. 'End these benefits or anything approaching them without making use of 30 acreS Of Hackney Marshes (less than • one-tenth of their area) let him do so $ once. 'Unless a better scheme can be propounded, it seems unlikely that.the.GoVern- mcot will exercise its undoubted power in the matter in such a way as to forbid the.L.C.C. to bring slums and overcrowding in Stepney to an end in the way that appears after adequate investigation to be the only practicable one at its disposal.—
[It is satisfactory to knoW that the " contemplates " gee in the East End as well
the provision of .30 acres opespace
as the 50 acres at Chigwell, but the language in the official report was not even us strong as the non -committal " con- templates."—ED. The Spectator.]
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