CORRESPONDENCE 485 



without climbing stairs, so that they can play and obtain exercise 

 easily and without crowding up staircases and passages, as must 

 happen with families in apartments opening on to a common 

 staircase and passages, and piled one above the other as in the 

 modern tenement house. Every house wants, and ought to 

 have, a fringe of grass between the windows and the road to 

 allay dust and an area in the rear for gardens where vegetables 

 may be grown and general reasonable open-air exercise obtained 

 by the dwellers in the odd five, or ten minutes, or half-hours, 

 that can be thriftily so employed throughout the day. When 

 allotment gardens are half an hour's walk from the house this 

 is impossible. The allotment garden ought to be right at the 

 rear of the house, and all this is possible on the basis of ten 

 houses per acre. 



It has always seemed to me that each Municipality ought 

 itself to acquire, as occasion offers, the fringe of land on its 

 suburbs, and that this land ought to be planned and laid out 

 by the Municipality to meet all the requirements as to manu- 

 factories, railways, etc., and for housing the people on Garden 

 City lines. I go further than this, and hold that the Munici- 

 pality could afford to give this land to those who would build 

 the houses thereon. At present the great difficulty in pro- 

 viding cottages and houses is the land question. Land is very 

 cheap when purchased at a particular moment, as at the death 

 of the late owner when the land is being sold by order of trustees, 

 especially if the area of land to be dealt with is large. I have 

 known within the last twenty years such an estate of about 

 400 to 500 acres within seven miles from the Marble Arch to 

 realise only £50 per acre. But, when the wave of building 

 reached such an estate, and small plots were applied for for 

 building purposes, the ordinary market value for building-land 

 would apply, and necessarily so. Also, under existing con- 

 ditions, the owner has no power to lay out his land to the 

 best advantage for the whole district. If he asked to carry a 

 street through a neighbour's land he would be refused ; whereas 

 the Municipality, under the Town Planning Act, could not only 

 acquire certain of the land, but could make a plan and scheme 

 for the remaining land in the whole district with a view to 

 meeting every requirement of direct access to tram or train or 

 omnibus. Suppose we imagine that such an estate was 

 acquired in the suburbs of any of our manufacturing towns, 



