58 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



cessities of healthy life, and there are the same kinds of proposals being 

 put forward to deal with them, showing the general recognition of 

 the need for better planning as a first step in reform. 



Professor A. A. Stoughton, of the University of Manitoba, 

 writes as follows* regarding a settlement scheme proposed to be 

 carried on in that province: 



The usual homesteading plan of settling families on sec- 

 tions or quarter sections, using only the rectangular system of 

 road allowance, and marking the centre by a promiscuous group 

 of shacks around the railway platform, may have done in the 

 past for our immigrants, but for people whose spirit has been 

 quickened by the thrilling experiences of the past two years, 

 whether in the fighting line or as non-combatants, something 

 more than this is necessary. Otherwise our settlers will be- 

 come embruited with the loneliness of their isolation and the 

 deadening influence of their surroundings, without alleviation 

 of any socializing agency. 



It has been amply proved in the discussions of the recent 

 Social Welfare Congress that if people living on the land are 

 not to degenerate, there must be some sort of community 

 life and the opportunity aud the impulse toward a social spirit. 

 There must be an incentive to get together. 



It may well be questioned whether any such common ac- 

 tivity could be long maintained in the centre of the usual sort, 

 utterly deformed, squalid and ugly, and lacking the barest 

 necessities for the inspiration of a civic spirit. The whole 

 area settled must be properly planned to make the easiest 

 access from the furthest farm to the centre; the centre must be 

 laid out and the building and other features planned with the 

 same sort of care and respect for appearance and the require- 

 ments of the situation as is exercised in the civic centres of towns 

 and cities. 



To improve this situation, two things are involved. The 

 first concerns the general plan. The deadly rectangle of sec- 

 tion lines must be replaced by diagonal or other roads adjusted 

 to the particular conditions, as indicated in the report of the 

 Commission of Conservation, by which distances to travel 

 and the mileage of roads to construct and maintain are greatly 

 reduced, and account must be taken of the topography, 

 streams, woods, or other natural features, in order to make 

 the most convenient and effective plan. 



A suitable area should be devoted to community purposes; 

 sites for the school and the community hall; locations for the 

 hotel, the store, the creamery, and all this properly related 

 to the railway station, freight shed, elevator, and other build- 

 ings. Around and near the school might be school gardens, 



* Manitoba Free Press, February, 1917. 



