your Association is engaged in. But you have a line of work that others do not share in, which is known as Civic Improvement. Through the energetic work of the Horticultural Societies of this Province our cities, towns and villages are being gradually transformed into places of beauty and citizens are encouraged to improve their surroundings with benefit to themselves and their neighbours. You will find many beautiful places outside of the larger cities. There has been a marvellous development going on; what were once hamlets are now incorporated municipalities with beautiful walks and roads and the grounds around the homes splendidly decorated with flowers. If there is one place more than another where the people appreciate flowers it is in the smaller towns, and from these the influence goes out to the farms and dwellings of the labourers. I remember when driving a few years ago in the south end of the township of Mulmur, which is very hilly and rough, we came to a farm with only a small clearing on it, and a new log house, which was quite unusual, for log houses are considered things of the past, but there was a new log house with the corners as neatly dovetailed as our grandfathers would have done fifty years ago. The snow was two and a half feet deep that morning, but what attracted my eye was a beautiful display of geraniums and other flowers in the windows of that little home. The work you are doing must be far reaching, or in such an isolated place would not have been seen those beautiful flowers.

In the midst of political campaigns, such as is going on at present, it is pleasant on occasions like this to forget politics for a while and come among ladies and gentlemen who are doing their best to make this Province brighter and better in every way.

I thank you for your attention and wish you every success in your work.

THE MODERN HOME AND THE GARDEN CITY MOVEMENT.

MRS. DUNINGTON-GRUBB, LONDON, ENGLAND.

I come here to-night in the spirit of friendly criticism. After what Hon. Mr. Duff has said about the beauties of the Canadian villages and cities I feel that you may be a little disappointed at some of the remarks that I shall have to make later on, but I do so in a friendly spirit and with a desire to help you on to something better. Let us first consider the difference between town planning in England and city planning in America. The latter consists chiefly of improving and reconstructing existing cities, cities that have been laid out on the old checker-board system, the system which exists on the entire American Continent, Canada included. American city planning is for the purpose of doing away as far as possible with the evils which have resulted from this bad system, t consists chiefly in the improving of the traffic and street distribution, the introduction of a definite focal point with a civic centre and the laying out of elaborate park systems, boulevards, playgrounds and open spaces, but up to the present the question of the better housing of the people of the working classes has been entirely neglected. Mr. Nolan, of Boston, recently said "The first and last end of a city, the one that outweighs all others, is civic spirit, and the expression of that spirit in great and enduring public works, erected for the common welfare," and then he goes on "chief among these according to modern standards and modern necessities is a system of parks, playgrounds and open spaces, adequate in extent, artistic in design, scientific in construction and liberal in maintenance." Those are the

chief modern requirements, according to the American idea of city planning. I do not wish in any way to depreciate this noble work of beautifying cities by the adding of parks and the improvement of traffic distribution and the planting of trees in the streets, and the establishment of playgrounds-all this is very good and very necessary work, but it is after all secondary to the housing of the people. Even if a city is encircled by magnificent ring boulevards and parks and a welldefined, linked-up park system, all this is inadequate if in the centre there is a festering sore of over-crowding and squalor. The Rochester Civic Improvement Committee issued a report on their city and the improvements which they considered necessary; it was a very excellent report and it dealt with the suggestion of a new

civic centre, a new railway station, railway bridges, new streets, new direct thoroughfares and an improved park system. The park system which already exists is excellent, but it is not good enough for Rochester and they wish for something even better, but in the whole of this report there was scarcely any mention. of the better housing of the people. In England we do not speak of City planning; but Town planning which is interpreted by the Town Planning Act. In England we realize that it is now too late, for, in the first place, the cities were badly planned. or not planned at all, and we realize at this stage that little can be done by reconstruction, so that we are dealing with the control of undeveloped areas-suburban development. development on modern lines of areas near our cities, and rapidly growing urban and rural districts. This movement in England is the direct outcome

of the congestion and unsatisfactory conditions in our older cities. There seems to be a little confusion in Canada as to what the Garden City movement really means. This housing problem has been attacked very successfully in four different ways; we have four different methods of dealing with it. First, we have the Garden or Industrial Village; second, the Co-partnership Tenants Ltd. Housing Scheme; third, the Garden City, and fourth, the Garden Suburb. I give them chronologically in order. It is about 24 years ago since Lever Bros., the great soap manufacturers, first felt the necessity of more room for their industries and better housing conditions for their workpeople. For that reason they left Warrington, and established a large factory in a little village adjoining, Port Sunlight, with which no doubt many of you are familiar. I will show some pictures on the screen presently. This was the first movement of the kind. It was a very larg undertaking, for the village itself occupies 140 acres without the works. It is laid out on modern lines, with bright, healthy, sanitary houses, with their own little gardens, open spaces, playgrounds, an institute, a church and allotments for allotment gardens-all this has been very beautifully carried out at a very considerable cost to the owner. This village has cost about £350,000. This may be looked upon as somewhat Utopian; the villagers pay rent, but that money is spent in upkeep, so that the enterprise cannot be looked upon as a financial going concern, but Sir William Lever has more than reaped the benefit by the improved conditions and health of the workers and the health of the children. The infant mortality is very low indeed. Two years later came into being the Cadbury Model Village at Bourneville; this was brought about very much in the same way. The Cadbury establishment was crowded out of Birmingham, and they had to go elsewhere. They have a larger village, and I am not sure whether it is self-supporting or not, but it is run on very much the same lines as Port Sunlight.

This is a plan of Port Sunlight; here you will see the principle of modern planning, whether it is an industrial village or a garden city or a garden suburb; there is always a definite focal point in the plan, from which the roads radiate. Here is the church, here the main boulevard. Here are the houses arranged around an open space, and that open space would be used (according to the size), as tennis. grounds, bowling greens, or if sufficiently large, allotment gardens. If a workingman does not care for a garden he need not have it; that is to say, he need not have an allotment; he is not forced to. On the other hand, if another man is fond of growing his own vegetables he can get his next door neighbour's allotment, if the latter does not want it, and, in this way, he can do as much or as little gardening as he chooses. Here is the Institute and here the wading pool for the children and recreation grounds and flower gardens. This is a perspective view of the Central avenue with the church at the top. This is another view of the Central avenue before the trees have grown up. The church erected on the site of the focal point is a very beautiful one.

A MEMBER: What rent do they pay?

MRS. DUNINGTON-GRUBB. Usually the same as other cottages in the district. Rents vary from 5s. 6d., 6s. 6d. and 9s. a week to a pound; it depends on the part of England and the size of the cottage.

In this view the streets are all dotted with trees. These are some cottages at the other model village of Bourneville. There is one interesting thing to notice about this picture. Both these model villages were constructed some years ago— one 22 years and the other 24 years ago-before we had our Town Planning Act. Formerly we had our roads 50 feet wide, which of course was unnecessarily wide

for property of this class. In Canada I believe you are not allowed to have roads less than 66 feet wide. That is very extravagant and quite unnecessary, as I will show later on. Since the Town Planning Act we can build and have roads much narrower than that. We can have a road 20 feet, if they are called drives. If a road feeds only a few houses, if it is not wider than 20 feet and not longer than 500 feet, it can be called a drive, and the surface is treated more like a carriage drive to a private residence. In this case, the distance between the houses on opposite sides of the road must not be less than 50 feet. The fences are made of local stone.

The new system is, instead of giving each house a quarter-acre plot, to group them around common open spaces. The houses are usually limited to twelve per acre, but sometimes there are sixteen; the cubic space enforced all over England would apply.

In most of our garden suburbs the style of house is settled before the architect is employed; that is so in the Hampstead Garden suburb.

This is a diagram of Bourneville to show the proportion of space occupied by roads, parks, open spaces and factories. No one can complain of overcrowding. There are 460 acres at Bourneville, which you will see is considerably larger than Port Sunlight, which has only 140 acres. The population of Bourneville is everincreasing. Port Sunlight is built to accommodate four thousand. They haven't reached that figure yet. Bourneville is not nearly filled up.

All houses have sanitary appliances and are well provided. This was the beginning of the movement towards the better housing of the working classes. The next movement of the kind was the Co-partnership Tenants. This is a co-operative system for the housing of the people. The first experiment was started at Ealing some years ago, known as the Ealing Tenants. An option was taken on a small area of land, a small company was formed and shares were issued-shares and loan stock. The shares were issued at £10, to be taken up by the tenants living on the estate, and no tenant was permitted to have more than twenty of these £10 shares, and if any tenant could not afford to pay £10 down, he could complete the amount by paying half-a-crown monthly instalments. In this way all the tenants had a share in the estate, that is to say, no man owned his own house, but they all owned a portion of the houses and the land. The money came in very slowly in monthly instalments of half-a-crown, and therefore, in order to get the necessary material to get the houses going a loan of stock was raised. A share of stock receives a dividend of 5 per cent. and 4 per cent. The company is not allowed to pay higher dividends than those; the money does not go back to the tenants in the form of cash, but in the form of shares to the value of the house that individual man lives in. He receives shares according to the rent he pays up to the value of the house he lives in; after that time he receives his interest in cash. As every man has an interest in the whole estate, it is to the advantage of each individual to see that no house goes into disrepair. There is also a repairing fund, and if the cost is in excess of the amount then there is a call on the tenants for the amount, so that every man strives to keep his house in order and sees that his neighbour does likewise, in order to keep the expenses down and the profits up. This system has been running for ten years, and is a financial success. They have continued to grow; the main society has now thirteen or fourteen other societies affiliated with it, and it last year not only paid the 5 and 4 per cent. interest, but also two shillings in the pound according to the proportion of the rent to each tenant on the estate, and they have a large balance in hand, so that this is an absolutely sound financial undertaking. This system of co-partnership housing is for the workingman, and these houses vary in rent, accord