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streets of Burnley they had as beautiful cottages as they could 
find at Port Sunlight—but next door was perhaps a pig-sty. 
Some of the Burnley mothers who lived within a quarter of a mile 
of the parks had never been there, and they seldom opened the 
windows of their houses. A great deal had been done at Burnley 
to improve the health of the people. Now Burnley had a good 
opportunity. The slopes of Towneley Park were well adapted for 
development in the direction referred to by the Lecturer. He 
did not know a place where they could make so good an experi- 
ment. If the Corporation had to say, “ We will clear out the 
rookeries—Pickup Croft, the Park, and other places—and build 
model cottages all along these slopes,” what would be the result ? 
Instead of making Burnley a Paradise, they would probably find 
in ten years nobody would go into the place, as it would probably 
be reduced to another Pickup Croft and Park. They would have 
to alter the people themselves. 
Mr. Sheldon (Town Clerk), in moving a vote of thanks to the 
Lecturer, said it was no part of the duty of a public official to be 
imaginative, but he often thought it was his duty to be severely 
practical. He could not help feeling that the lecture touched a 
very small part of a very large question. They must be entirely 
in sympathy with the main idea of the garden city—the division 
of the large centres of industry so that the workers could not 
only “have a chance to work but a chance to live. But they 
had unfortunately to deal with aggregations of people 
already existing, and the pressing problem was—how were they 
to deal with them? While they wished God-speed to every 
endeavour, such as the Garden City Association, they could not 
shut their eyes to the more pressing problems which had to be 
met—and solved, if they had to preserve their national character 
and prosperity. It could not be a pleasant thing to them in these 
democratic days to find, as they did, a strong evidence of the 
advantage of a benevolent autocracy. Did anyone suppose that 
the site of Bournville could have been developed by divided 
counsels? It was the creation of one man and one mind, It was 
the same thing in regard to Port Sunlight. Touching the practical 
problems waiting solution at their very doors, what was to be 
done in order to improve the conditions of towns such as 
Burnley ? Were the landlords of Burnley prepared to place their 
Jand into the hands of an autocrat ; and was that autocrat to be 
the local governing body ? Unless they could bring themselves 
closely into touch with questions of that kind they would make 
very little progress towards solving the difficulty. He was glad 
to say that at any rate there was one landlord in the neighbour- 
hood of Burnley who had shown an enlightened desire to promote 
in a small way the idea of a garden city on the slopes of 
Towneley ; and one could not help seeing what a splendid field 
