104 DISCUSSION. 



Some of the fine buildings that have been suggested by various 

 writers should be looked upon as ideals, perhaps not to be reached 

 before the lapse of many years. It will be found, when the work 

 of forming the city is set about in earnest, that the inevitable 

 expenditure will be enormous, and therefore we should carefully 

 discriminate between the essentials (as laid down in Mr. Knibbs' 

 paper) and those suggestions which have been made without due 

 consideration of ways and means. We must remember the 

 vicissitudes of national finance, that the good ship of State at 

 irregular intervals strikes a rock, and then' retrenchment is the 

 watchword. Retrenchment is often carried out in a more or less 

 empirical way, and we should guard against the sacrifice of 

 essentials in such a contingency. Washington is a city often 

 quoted to us as an example, but we should not lose sight of the 

 fact that it has a far wealthier and more densely populated territory 

 at its back than we have. 



I would suggest that the whole of the Federal territory be 

 looked upon somewhat in the light of a gigantic park, the streets 

 and the buildings to be inserted as details and when required. 

 By this I mean that one grand scheme should be kept in view, 

 that all our energies should not be entirely devoted to the official 

 and residential part of the Federal City to the neglect of its 

 suburbs and of its adjacent territory. In planning the roads and 

 other means of access to the Federal territory we should not lose 

 sight of the fact that the design of the city itself, which is of 

 course of supreme importance, should not exclude rational treat- 

 ment of the federal non-urban territory. 



Design your streets and squares and gardens as soon as you 

 can, and then let the planting begin. You will get more evident 

 results from an artistic and hygienic point of view from planting 

 than by any other means, and planting, amongst other advantages, 

 will give definiteness to the ground plan of the city. There is an 

 old proverb "Trees grow while we sleep"; while other details are 

 being worked out our plants are increasing in size and usefulness. 

 I trust that the crescent will be adopted to some extent, as it is 



