RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 215 



affords us the example we require to solve a large portion of the prob- 

 lem of the returned soldiers. Such a scheme involves artificial organi- 

 zation to get it started, but one of the objects of that artificial organi- 

 zation would be to develop a town in which there would be the fullest 

 public freedom for natural growth and individual initiative. 



Sites can be obtained close to large centres of population, where 

 towns could be created on land which can be acquired at a reasonable 

 price. The facilities which a government has to enable it to acquire 

 a large block of land at agricultural rates and convert it, by improved 

 transportation, etc., into valuable building land would provide such 

 a scheme with a sound economic basis. The problem of creating 

 such towns is not in the difficulty of acquiring suitable sites, it is in 

 getting sufficient capital to equip the site with such improvements 

 as are necessary to make it adaptable for building a city. In so far 

 as the Letchworth scheme has hung fire during the past fourteen years 

 it has been almost entirely due to lack of sufficient capital at the out- 

 set, but in Canada there should be no difficulty in this respect. We 

 are contemplating placing a large number of soldiers on the land, at 

 a cost which may mean that the governments will have to provide, 

 by loans and other forms of expenditure, about $2,000 per family. 

 If we were to apply the same capital to develop a combined industrial 

 and agricultural colony, on scientific lines, for 30,000 people, we 

 would have — at $500 per head — a capital of $15,000,000 for the pur- 

 pose. The Letchworth scheme was started on a capital of about 

 $750,000,* or less than the cost of the bare site which had to be pur- 

 chased to build the town. If there had been four or five times the 

 capital available it is certain that the city would have been completely 

 occupied by 30,000 people in a very few years. Owing to the want of 

 capital the development has had to be slow and the city is now about 

 half completed, although it is growing more rapidly than towns of a 

 similar size in England. 



In a new development of this kind it is important that the first 

 experiments should be carried out near to existing centres for many 

 reasons, the most important of which is that it is the only way in 

 which the element of risk in obtaining industries and population 

 and securing rapid financial success can be reduced to the minimum. 

 Land can be acquired within a comparatively few miles of the largest 

 cities in Canada at from $150 to $300 per acre. By improving tin- 

 means of transportation, providing water supply, power and other 

 public services, this land could be converted into building land of a 

 high value which, without any other aid, should alone provide inter- 



* The share capital at 30th September, 1901 was $503,460, and mortgagee aad 

 loan. $419,070. 



