Charles Compton Reade

CHARLES COMPTON READE

(1880-1933)

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Charles Compton Reade (1880-1933), born in New Zealand, came like Thomas Adams to town planning through journalism. In London, Reade took up Adams’ old position as advocate of garden cities. He had lectured in New Zealand in 1911 and famously undertook an Australasian tour to promote Town Planning with W.R. Davidge in 1914. The Wellington Post gave unusually good coverage to Reade’s campaigns, and their spirit comes vividly across the years in the extracts given here.

Later as a government planner in South Australia, Reade was to design Adelaide’s showcase garden suburb, Colonel Light Gardens. He went on to frame planning services in the Malay peninsula and then in southern Africa. He died suddenly there in 1933.

Charles Compton Reade was born in East Invercargill, New Zealand in 1880. He was the second son of Lawrence Edward Reade, an Indian-born solicitor from an old Ipsden, Oxfordshire family, and nephew of Charles Reade (1814-1884), the prolific author of The Cloister and the Hearth. His mother was Margaret Hannah Booth of Oamaru, whose family came from Bradford and Darlington. Lawrence Reade’s legal work took him to various places in New Zealand, first in the South Island at Dunedin and Christchurch, and later in the North at Wellington, Fielding, and Foxton. A keen sportsman in his youth, representing Otago and Canterbury at cricket, and a well known oarsman and tennis player, Lawrence Reade fell from a Wellington tramcar in July 1910 aged 63. He died a few weeks later as a result of his injuries and the brain operations that followed. At that time his second son Charles Compton Reade was editor of the Auckland-based New Zealand Graphic, his eldest son Edward was employed at Wellington in the New Zealand railway department, and his third son was a contractor across the Marlborough Sound at Havelock.

An inquest was held at the hospital yesterday concerning the death of Mr. Lawrence E. Reade, solicitor, Foxton, who fell from a tramcar on 2nd July, and suffered an injury to his head. He was subsequently operated upon, apparently recovered, and was discharged from the hospital on 29th July. Deceased was admitted to the institution again on 15th August, suffering from fits. Another operation was performed, but the patient gradually sank, and died yesterday morning. Death was immediately due to syncope. After hearing evidence, the Coroner (Mr. W. R. Haselden) returned a verdict in accordance with the medical testimony given.

Not long after these events, Charles Compton Reade was in Wellington for his brother’s wedding.

4 May 1911

At St. Anne's Church, Wellington South, this morning, a wedding took place between Mr. Edward B. L. Reade, of the Railway Department, Wellington, eldest son of the late Laurence E Reade, of Foxton, and Miss Catherine M. J. Gallagher, fifth daughter of the late Mr. James Gallagher, Kaikoura. Considerable interest was taken in the proceedings, owing to both parties being prominently associated with, the work of the church, and its societies. The church was full for the occasion, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Father A. T. Herring, S.M. In honour of the event, St. Anne's choir, of which the bridegroom is the conductor, sang Turner's Mass of St. Cecilia, under the baton of Mr. A. J. McDonald. The choir was reinforced for the occasion by members of the Boulcott Street choir. The bride was dressed in a white embroidered princess gown, trimmed with satin ribbon and silver tassels. The usual wreath and veil (embroidered by the Sisters of Mercy) were also worn. She was attended by her sister, Miss B. Gallagher, and Miss F. Vaney, both of whom wore white muslin gowns, Empire style, trimmed with lace and ribbon, also large black velvet hats with black plumes. The duties of best man were carried out by the brother of the bridegroom, Mr. Charles C. Reade, editor of the Auckland Weekly Graphic. The groomsman was Mr. J. L. Leydon, a fellow-employee of Mr. Reade in the Railway Department. As the happy couple left the church Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" was played by the organist, Miss K. Henderson. A reception was subsequently held at Godber's.

When Charles Compton Reade’s stepped forward at his brother’s wedding in Wellington in 1911, his life was in transition from journalism to town planning. He was already an established journalist and editor in his own right. How had he arrived at this point? He was clearly talented, and had become a persuasive speaker. He had worked in London, where he was recognisably a member of a wider family of notable writers. His connection to the legendary William Winwood Reede (1838-1875) opened doors in some circles. And he was a New Zealander, and thereby classified by association with progressive ideas of womens’ rights, social security, and scientific endeavour, and with compatriots like Reeves and Rutherford at the leading edge of the new century.

Pember Reeves (1857-1932) and Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

A COLONIAL AT HOME AND ABROAD

Charles Compton Reade attended Wellington College (NZ) in 1896. What did he do after that? His family connections could guarantee an entry into the world of London periodicals, and he spent time as a journalist in London and travelled Europe in that capacity. His long-dead cousin Winwood was hugely influential –the progressive ideas of his “Martyrdom of Man” inspiring Cecil Rhodes, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Winston Churchill and later George Orwell.

William Winwood Reede (1838-1875)

“It is a sure criterion of the civilisation of ancient Egypt that the soldiers did not carry arms except on duty, and that the private citizens did not carry them at all.”

“It may safely be asserted that the art of war will soon be reduced to a simple question of expenditure and credit, and that the largest purse will be the strongest arm.”

“All doctrines relating to the creation of the world, the government of man by superior beings, and his destiny after death, are conjectures which have been given out as facts, handed down with many adornments by tradition, and accepted by posterity as "revealed religion". They are theories more or less rational which uncivilised men have devised in order to explain the facts of life, and which civilised men believe that they believe.”

“If Christianity were true, religious persecution would become a pious and charitable duty: if God designs to punish men for their opinions it would be an act of mercy to mankind to extinguish such opinions. By burning the bodies of those who diffuse them many souls would be saved that would otherwise be lost, and so there would be an economy of torment in the long run. It is therefore not surprising that enthusiasts should be intolerant.”

“Doubt is the offspring of knowledge: the savage never doubts at all.”

“If we look into ourselves we discover propensities which declare that our intellects have arisen from a lower form; could our minds be made visible we should find them tailed.”

“The philosophic spirit of inquiry may be traced to brute curiosity, and that to the habit of examining all things in search of food. Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.”

“There is a certain class of people who prefer to say that their fathers came down in the world through their own follies rather than to boast that they rose in the world through their own industry and talents. It is the same shabby-genteel sentiment, the same vanity of birth, which makes men prefer to believe that they are degenerated angels rather than elevated apes.”

“We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.”

“Industry is the only true source of wealth, and there was no industry in Rome. By day the Ostia road was crowded with carts and muleteers, carrying to the great city the silks and spices of the East, the marble of Asia Minor, the timber of the Atlas, the grain of Africa and Egypt; and the carts brought nothing out but loads of dung. That was their return cargo. London turns dirt into gold. Rome turned gold into dirt.”

“In Europe itself it is not probable that war will ever absolutely cease until science discovers some destroying force so simple in its administration, so horrible in its effects, that all art, all gallantry, will be at an end, and battles will be massacres which the feelings of mankind will be unable to endure.”

“As for the system of the Commune, which makes it impossible for a man to rise or fall, it is merely the old caste system revived; if it could be put into force, all industry would be disheartened, emulation would cease, and mankind would go to sleep.”

Beguiled by W.W.Reade: Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), H. G. Wells (1866-1946), Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Eric Blair (1903-1950)

In London between 1906 and 1909, Charles Compton Reade was reportedly an assistant editor of an unspecified society journal. His interest in social improvement and the title he later edited in New Zealand might suggest that he spent at least some time on The Graphic, owned and edited by Carmichael Thomas. During this time, he wrote articles for Australian and New Zealand newspapers which he later incorporated into The Revelation of Britain, a Book for Colonials (Auckland, 1909). Shocked by the unhealthy conditions in which most inhabitants of English industrial cities lived and worked, Reade warned his contemporaries at home in characteristically stirring and colourful terms to avoid such evils in their own fast expanding cities by adopting town planning as progressive municipal bodies in Germany had done and as demonstrated by English soap magnate William Lever in his Cheshire industrial township estate at Port Sunlight.

Back in New Zealand in 1911, as Auckland editor of the Weekly Graphic and New Zealand Mail, Charles Compton Reade encouraged unsuccessful attempts to enact an Auckland town planning bill and a town planning bill for the whole of New Zealand, printing sympathetic illustrated articles and going out to deliver popular lectures well illustrated by projected pictures.

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Wellington Evening Post, 8 August 1911

TOPICS OF THE DAY,

Houses and Hovels

Mr. Charles Reade, of Auckland, made a very good beginning here last night with his town-planning mission. He filled his hall, and the audience would have been increased by several hundreds if the walls of the building had been elastic enough. "The lecturer has given us something to think about," justly commented the chairman. Mr. Reade did not spring a surprise on Wellington citizens when he pointed to the growing congestion of parts of Te Aro flat, but thanks are due to him for his stressing of the fact in a manner to induce the authorities to look for remedies, Nobody here knows better than Mr. Reade, who has studied his subject in England and Germany, that the solution does not lie in a wholesale condemnation and destruction of shabby, huddled hovels. The people displaced from such buildings have to be housed. Destruction and suitable replacement have to go together. Last night Mr. Reade was principally concerned with pointing to the need for action, and his next lecture will set out possible lines of procedure. In Auckland and in Wellington he has done a very valuable public service, at no personal reward except the consciousness of doing solid public good, and we hope to see his efforts heartily supported by public men. This work has long been calling for an enthusiast with knowledge and zeal to stir the people. It is a movement requiring strong men in the open, toiling ceaselessly for the common good, undeterred by bias or ignorance, and undismayed by any obstacles.

Wellington Evening Post, 18 October 1911

"PLAN THE TOWN,"

MR. CHARLES READE TO AID.

When Mr. Charles Reade, editor of the New Zealand Graphic, spoke here recently on the overcrowding of cities, he pleasantly proved that he knew his subject well. He keenly interested an audience which packed the Concert Room of the Town Hall. His purpose then was to reveal the need for action to prevent the dank growth of slums in New Zealand's cities, and his object next Friday will be to help to give a lead. With the aid of limelight views he will show the present system of suburban development in Auckland and Wellington. The people will see how the lands have been cut up and parcelled out for homes. By way of contrast he will demonstrate what town-planning has already achieved in Britain and Germany, where Mr. Reade had opportunities to observe the progress made in recent years. Mr. Reade comes with a message, something definite, something useful to say, and he has matter and manner to give the public a guarantee that his lecture will be worth hearing and his pictures worth seeing.

Wellington Evening Post, 21 October 1911, Page 9

TOWN-PLANNING.

LECTURE BY MR. CHARLES C. READE

Town planning in all its varied aspects; the extent to which it is in vogue on the Continent and in a lesser degree in England; its sad neglect in New Zealand but the wide scope for the applications of its principles here—all this and more was picturesquely portrayed by Mr. Charles C. Reade, editor of the New Zealand Graphic, in a lecture delivered in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall last evening. The lecturer handled his subject in an attractive and instructive manner, and added interest was lent to it by a comprehensive series of lantern slides. Several hundred people were present. Mr. Fowlds, M.P. who presided, in introducing the speaker, described him as a public benefactor, in view of the enormous amount of time and labour he had spent in the study of a subject which had been paid so little attention by public men in this country. Liverpool furnished a bright example, having established a chair of town planning. Mr. Fowlds concluded with the remark that the way in which suburban areas were being cut up in New Zealand was a disgrace to civilisation. In prefacing his lecture with the quotation, "God made the country, man made towns, but the devil made suburbs." Mr. Reade added that, so far as New Zealand cities were concerned, the devil must have had a particularly busy time. The first half of his lecture was devoted to an exposition of slums in the making in the suburbs of Wellington and Auckland, and by a number of excellent photographic views, Kilbirnie-flat and Miramar were drawn into the limelight, and "shown up.” Glimpses of Auckland, a city which had supplied 150 blind roads in five years, afforded an illustration of the inevitable result of cutting up the land by the individual instead of by the community. In deploring the fact that areas of virgin country were transformed by unheeding subdivision into "forests of chimney-pots," the lecturer dwelt upon the fallacy of allowing Miramar and numerous other suburbs to be cut up without an acre of land being set aside for recreation and other public purposes, while the syndicates all along pocketed the unearned increment. Speaking in the latter half of his address, under the heading of "Town Planning in Practice," Mr. Reade sought to remove several misconceptions as to its true ideals. Its purpose was not, for instance, the securing of "nice homes with broad streets, and pretty gardens for poetical people.” Germans were practical enough, but this did not deter them from going in for wholesale town-planning, as seen in the laying-out of Dresden, to single out one city for special reference. Magnificent views were screened by the lecturer, of town-planning villages and cities on the Continent and in England—in the making, or already developed— and these, when supplemented by a recital of his personal observations, furnished evidence that the movement was simply a systematic and scientific method of preventing slums and at the same time enabling the mass of the people to get homes for themselves, with plenty of light and air thrown in, without paying enormous sums to speculators. Mr. Reade stirred his audience to several outbursts of applause when he demonstrated in a convincing manner that, apart from the happy and healthy conditions in life which it was the direct means of fostering, town planning was invariably a sound business proposition. He also emphasised that town planning did not mean the creation of sleepy-hollow hamlets to the neglect of the cities, which, indeed, furnished the basic ground for the movement. Further, he pointed out, amid applause, that the scheme could never be put into effect until the municipalities -and not speculating individuals- were left to subdivide our suburbs. and fashion our cities and reap the pecuniary benefits thereof, for assuredly town planning "paid" in more senses than one. Mr. Reade was heartily thanked for his address, and Mr. Fowlds for presiding.

In 1912 Reade returned to London and was active in the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association of Great Britain, both in pressing to organize a proposed Australasian town planning tour and, in 1913, as acting secretary of the association and acting editor of its magazine Garden Cities and Town Planning. On 26 February 1914 he married Marjorie Pratt, secretary to the musician and conductor Landon Ronald, conductor of the New Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall and Director of the Guildhall School of Music.

Lady Jeune (1849-1931) Landon Ronald (1873-1938)

In widowhood Lady Jeune forsook her role as society hostess and campaigned for town-planning improvements

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Wellington Evening Post, 20 August 1912, Page 8

"PLAN THE TOWN"

ENGLAND'S LEAD.

AUSTRALASIA LAGGING.

A forcible reminder to the people of Australasia that they lag behind their kinsmen of old England in town-planning is given by the London correspondent of the Melbourne Argus. " After looking on," he writes, "during the last two years whilst English thought begins to attack problem after problem which we have thrashed out for years previously in Australia, one grows accustomed to the idea that, in political thought, we in Australia are from fifteen to twenty-five years ahead of the Old Country. But there is one important political problem in which, one must admit, English thought is far ahead of us ; and that is in the problem of laying out and governing the towns in which the people live. This subject is given far more attention, and is counted far more important, in Great Britain than Australians have any idea of; some pretty good authorities say it is the chief interest of the present age. A very large amount of education in it has been going on for years, and the result is that the average thinking man here is pretty well up in the problem at a time when Australians barely realise its existence.

A MISSION PROBABLE.

"It is curious that, although in both theory and practice in this matter England has advanced much further than Australia, yet the English experts confessedly look to Australia as the chief hope of the town-planners. It is a common-place that they would give millions to have our chances—they know that although we have some big cities, yet even the biggest of those cities is still the mere nucleus of what it will some day be, and the hope is always expressed that Sydney and Melbourne will get to work before it is too late. Personally one cannot feel too confident that they will; the general knowledge of the subject and the attention paid to it are meagre in Australia as compared to what they are here or even in Canada. But I believe that the Town-planning Association has practically decided upon sending a lecturer to do some of the necessary spade-work. The gentleman whom they are most likely to select is Mr. Charles Reade, a young New Zealand journalist, who was so struck with the unnecessary growth of slums in Auckland that he was led to throw all his enthusiasm into the town-planning movement, and forthwith came to England to study it. He is now assistant secretary of the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association. I believe that the cities of which he expects most in Australasia are Auckland and Sydney. The general hope in England is that the planning of the Federal capital will be such an object lesson to the other cities of Australia that there will be a sort of wholesale conversion of them before they allow their still existing chances to peter away as the Old World cities did in the unenlightened days. Australians probably do not realise with what keen interest their cities are being watched by the leaders in this reform in Great Britain."

Councillor Grigg intends to move as follows at the Miramar Borough Council meeting on Thursday: "That a special committee be set up to consider the question of tramway and waterway traffic for the district, and that the committee be empowered to confer with the directors of the Harbour Ferries Company re ferry services to the Miramar. Seatoun, and Karaka Bay Wharves, and with the Eastbourne Borough Council re the purchase of ferry boats suitable to both the Miramar and Eastbourne districts, and that the committee report generally as to what steps can be taken to secure a reduction of the present high tramway fare." .

Wellington Evening Post, 4 February 1913, Page 8

TOWN-PLANNING

THE VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND, 1914

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON 27th December. “Australasia's Need for Town-planning” is the subject of an article by Mr. C. C. Reade in this month's "Garden Cities and Town-planning." Mr. Reade is the organiser of the Australasian town-planning tour for 1914, and he thinks that the decision of the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association to send an expert emissary to New Zealand and Australia marks a great opportunity, while the proposed lectures will be little short of a revelation.

The tour comes at a right time, for Australians and New Zealanders nowadays are keen to know definite and precise details about town-planning. The tour will provide, in concise form, illuminated by up-to-date pictures and plans, the clearest insight into town-planning which the experience and talent of the Garden Cities Association can offer. The proposal is one of supreme importance, for the need for town-planning is urgent and vital to the welfare of growing oversea cities. If the problem of slums and overcrowding are to be successfully fought, a town-planning campaign along the lines projected by the Garden Cities Association must come sooner or later. Mr. Reade refers to the question of divided authority— the existence of numerous local bodies which hampers the solution of great civic problems. Auckland is quoted as having sixteen. "It is •somewhat remarkable," says Mr. Reade, "that whilst the central areas of most Australian and New Zealand cities were consciously planned and laid out on a scale far superior to many older English cities, their suburbs have been and are still permitted to grow for the greater part in haphazard fashion. If the present opportunity is neglected, then steadily rising immigration and fast-expanding cities will add enormously to the burden and difficulties of the immediate future”. A plan showing the suburban growth of Auckland is published as an example of the necessity for a Town-planning Act.

1914 town planning lecture tour of New Zealand with WR Davidge

Australian Tour 60 lectures in 5 states

Wellington Evening Post, 1 April 1914, Page 8

BETTER TOWNS

BY SANE PLANNING

A WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT

NEW ZEALAND'S TURN.

In a few months, by the generous aid of the English Garden Cities and Town-Planning Association, people of Now Zealand will have the advice of an eminent expert, Mr. W. R, Davidge, to assist them in plans for the mapping out of new urban and suburban settlement, and for the extensions of towns. Mr. Charles Reade, a New Zealander who has made a special study of this important subject, will accompany Mr. Davidge in the Australasian tour. In a preliminary article Mr. Reade gives some interesting facts, the results of his observations in Britain and on the Continent.

CHAOS.

Broadly speaking (Mr. Reade writes) there is a distinct similarity between the civic and social problems of old and new countries. In the old countries of the world the effects of overcrowding, slums, poverty, and other social ills are easier to see and understand by reason of their extraordinary intensity. The sharply-drawn lines between pauperism and affluence in the great cities of the world are unmistakable. The tangle of factories, schools, and thousands of homes heaped and huddled together in Greater London, in Greater Manchester, and Greater Glasgow are common enough. What strikes home to the colonial imagination is the fact that in all the towns of Great Britain there is the same overpowering disorder, the same chaos of buildings, traffic, docks, railways, factories, houses, and of human beings huddled and squeezed together in a congestion both amazing and distressing to the visitor from the Pacific. The effect of this is intensified by the disjointed, irregular plans on which streets and cities in recent years have grown, and, secondly, by the modern and startling changes in new forms of transit —electric cars, motors, motor-‘buses and cabs, electric trains, etc. The mass of this overcrowding and these panting activities have come upon British and European centres during the last few decades when there was no systematic planning of towns. It is fallacious to assume that slums are essentially the product of long periods of human activities. They are for the greater part the- product of the last fifty years. For instance, some of the worst slums in parts of Manchester sixty years ago were the suburban homes of well-to-do merchants. They have been engulfed in the spread of bricks and mortar, and fallen to the lot of less fortunate people. Districts like Kennington and Southwark or Euston in London are poignant examples of good residential districts that in less than fifty years have been transformed into abominable slums.

CORMORANT CITIES.

The comparatively modern growth of Slumdom, and overcrowding generally, is still more sharply illustrated by the development of German and Continental cities. In cities like Paris, Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipsig, Milan, and many others the worst housing conditions are to be found on land that forty years ago was open country. In Cologne, for instance, the greatest density of persons per acre exists not in the old medieval city but on land that was planned and developed thirty-five years ago. Berlin is perhaps the most striking example of all. In parts of Berlin land that is now crowded with four and five-story buildings (and people at the rate of 800 to 1000 per acre) forty years ago was small farms held by peasant folk. In other words, all this means is that the intensity of these problems has come upon European cities in less than the lifetime of cities like Melbourne and Sydney or Auckland and Christchurch. There has been ample evidence of the existence of bad housing conditions and overcrowding in parts of Sydney and Melbourne before recent commissions. New Zealand has also had its share of revelations in recent years. The nature of the evidence shows that similar causes and influences which produced the holocaust of British and Continental slums have been and are at work to-day in our "new-born" cities— cities which for the greater part in their evolution and their socinal, industrial, and municipal problems are just as old as pioneers of progress like Paris, Glasgow, and, latterly, the great German towns.

A WARNING TO NEW COUNTRIES.

The point now is that if the example of Europe has been ignored in the past there is no question that Australia and New Zealand in the future cannot afford to neglect, the lessons that their appalling realities teach. In recent years conditions have so changed that the problem of city life in Australasia has become more acute. The problems of overcrowded areas in the centre of cities and the unregulated growth of suburbs must be met. That is precisely the point where the town-planning lectures will be of real service. The success of the British and German garden city movement, as far as it has gone, is beyond question. The example and teaching of German city planning in particular is beyond question. These two things in themselves justify the proposal to utilise Mr. Davidge's services in Australasia in order that the message of modern town planning may be given in as lucid and an explicit form as possible. One of the first things to be done is to shape out the future city extensions along lines that will as far as possible avoid these social and economic disasters, not to mention those that have been perpetrated already in parts of Melbourne and Sydney.

NEED OF STUDY.

The object of these town-planning lectures is not to suggest copying the example of England or Germany, but more to adopt the practice of modern town-planning to the distinct conditions of Australasia. It is clear that the English Town Planning Act in its present form, together with the unwieldy procedure regulations prescribed by the Local Government Board would be dangerous to copy. To some extent, towns of Australasia will have to create and evolve their own machinery, but before this can be done a cardinal essential is that the authorities should be fully cognisant of the innumerable lessons which are to be learned in modern England and modern Europe to-day, and, what is still more important, the mistakes of modern town-planning. The dangers of haphazard growth and overcrowding, or of ill-considered town-planning, in our cities will not be wholly realised until they are brought before the public in a way that no superficial conception or lack of insight will be able to refute. Mr. Davidge's lectures should furnish this realisation, although it is always possible that more will be learned by hard, bitter experience than by actual teaching. I am sanguine enough to believe (concludes Mr. Reade) that these town-planning lectures later in the year will command very much interest and sympathy from all people who value the welfare and believe in the civic efficiency and future of their cities. They will also make clear many points of vital importance in framing legislation to suit the needs of Australasia.

Wellington Evening Post, 30 April 1914, Page 8

TOWN-PLANNING TOUR

Delegates of the Greater Wellington Municipal Electors' Association and the Institute of Architects have further discussed proposals in regard to the town-planning tour of Messrs. Davidge and Reade. On the motion of Mr. Leigh-Hunt, president of the Electors' Association, this organisation has been invited to make arrangements to meet the local expenses of the visitors. The combined committee’s secretary (Mr. Arcus) is in communication with other districts, and it is hoped to arouse sufficient enthusiasm to ensure a success for the mission from all viewpoints.

Wellington Evening Post 7 May 1914, Page 8

TOWN-PLANNING

AN AUSTRALASIAN TOUR.

(from our own correspondent)

SYDNEY, 2nd May.- A passenger from London by the Orvieto, which arrived from London this week, was Mr. Charles Reade, organiser of the Australasian Town-Planning Tour and representative of the British Garden Cities and Town-planning Association. Mr. Reade, who resided in Auckland for some time, being editor for some months of the now defunct Graphic, has come out to make preliminary arrangements in connection with the lantern lectures on garden cities and town-planning which are proposed to be given throughout Australasia by himself and Mr. W.R. Davidge, F.S.1., A.M.I.C.E. Mr. Davidge, who is at present touring America, will arrive in Auckland during the first week in July. Mr. Reade will go to Wellington at the end of this month and visit the principal centres; working up to Auckland, where he will meet Mr. Davidge. Both Mr. Davidge and Mr. Reade have been invited by the British Association for the Advancement of Science to give papers on town-planning at the annual meetings in Melbourne and Sydney next August.

Wellington Evening Post, 19 May 1914, Page 7

TOWN-PLANNING

MR. READE'S VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND.

(By Telegraph.— Press Association. -Copyright.)

SYDNEY, This Day.- Mr. Charles Reade, organiser of the Australasian town-planning tour, leaves for New Zealand by the Maunganui on Saturday next.

Wellington Evening Post, 20 May 1914, Page 9

PLANNING THE CITY

LEGISLATION WANTED

Town planning, with special reference to the advancement of Greater Wellington and the development of a definite planning scheme, has been one of the principal aims of the Greater Wellington Municipal Electors' Association since its inception. Debates on the subject were held last winter; but it has recently been decided that the association should take up the question in a comprehensive way. This decision was influenced to some extent by reason of the fact that the membership of the association (in addition to active suburban municipal electors' associations, which have a very large following) now totals 1000 citizen members, and with this large number behind the organisation it is felt that it is not only entitled to speak on this important subject with authority, but also with the knowledge that its views are more likely to be given effect to. At the last meeting of the executive it was decided to commence the winter season debates on Ist June, and the subject set down for discussion was as follows :— "That a petition be forthwith presented to the Government requesting the passing, during the approaching session of Parliament, of a Bill constituting town-planning boards, to consist of representatives of the Public Works and Railways Departments, local bodies, and directly elected representatives of citizens." The leading speakers will be Dr. Newman, M.P., Messrs. A. L. Hunt and J. S. Barton. The meeting, which promises to be an interesting one, will be open to the general public, and special invitations are being sent to members of local bodies, chambers of commerce, ratepayers' associations, and institutes of civil engineers and architects. Subsequent debates will deal with various phases of town-planning, and a definite policy, it is hoped, will be evolved thereby. At the same meeting a motion will be proposed to alter the name of the association so as to read the "Greater Wellington Town-Planning and Municipal Electors' Association." ' The object of this is to make it quite clear to the public that town planning is the leading feature of the association's work, which publicly has not perhaps been attained merely by the incorporating of this provision in its objects. A great stimulus is expected to be given to the town-planning movement by the approaching visit of Messrs. Davidge and Reade, town-planning lecturers, who open their campaign here in July next. An active canvass for the special purpose of obtaining funds to help to defray the cost of these lectures and subsequent work in town-planning, is now being made by the association's organiser, Mr. C. Smith, and the executive have every confidence that the citizens will realise the importance of the work now actively undertaken, and will respond liberally.

Wellington Evening Post, 27 May 1914, Page 2

FOR BETTER TOWNS

ENVOYS FROM ENGLAND

MR. C. C. READE'S RETURN.

"Town-planning has captured tho imagination of Australian statesmen and the public generally," declared Mr. Charles C. Reade, organiser of the Australasian town-planning tour, who landed in Wellington this morning from Sydney. "Although I arrived at Adelaide only a little over a month ago, in every city I visited there was the greatest interest shown and support offered to make the proposed lantern lectures on 'Garden Cities and Town-planning' of real and lasting value to the Commonwealth. Already arrangements have been made for sixty lectures in the principal towns and cities of Australia." Mr. Reade comes to New Zealand as the representative of the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association of Great Britain in order to arrange for a series of free public lantern lectures in the principal towns and cities of the Dominion during the month of July by Mr. W. R. Davidge, F.S.1., A.R.1.B.A.. A.M.I.C. E. (London County Council), and himself. Mr. Davidge is due to arrive at Auckland on Ist July from Vancouver, and after he and Mr. Reade have completed the proposed lectures in New Zealand they will join the British Association of Scientists at Adelaide and subsequently read papers on " Town-planning" before that body in Melbourne and Sydney during August. Tho months of September and October will be devoted to public lantern lectures in Australia in all the principal centres between Brisbane and Perth. For the past two years Mr. Reade (who is a New Zealander by birth) has been engaged in organising and lecturing for the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association in various parts of England and Scotland. He has contributed papers to conferences of local bodies in Great Britain and lectured before the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Liverpool University School of Civic Design. Last year he read a paper on "Town-planning in Australia" before the International Housing Congress at Ghent. "I have come to New Zealand" said Mr. Reade, to an interviewer this morning, "to ask the public and those in authority to help us financially and otherwise to assure these lectures by Mr. Davidge a hearing that will reach all classes of the Dominion. We have just one month to arrange for lectures and secure the necessary funds to cover tho expenses of the campaign. "Our mission is inspired by disinterested motives in the hope that sufficient public spirit and support will be forthcoming to make these lectures of permanent value and utility to the Dominion."

"I might say," added Mr. Reade, "that we owe our greater support in, London, when collecting funds to meet the preliminary costs of this undertaking, to Mr. Arthur Myers, M.P. (Auckland). When in England recently, Mr. Myers visited the Hampstead Garden Suburb on tho outskirts of London in company with myself, and was sufficiently impressed by what he saw there to at once hand us a cheque for £100 in aid of our expenses fund and also to guarantee a further sum of £50 towards the expenses of lectures at Auckland. With a few citizens of other centres prepared to follow Mr. Myers's splendid example, it Avould be a comparatively simple matter to raise neatly £500 required to meet all the expenses of halls, advertising, publicity, lanterns, and other charges entailed by our campaign throughout the cities and all important towns in the Dominion. By important towns I mean places like Wanganui, Palmerslon North, New Plymouth. Napier, Timaru, Invercargill, Hamilton, and others. “

"We are in for a busy time in Australia, where already Government grants and public subscriptions have been obtained and guarantees provided for the successful organisation of our lectures in the five States. Already in the States of Victoria and New South Wales there are more applications in for Iectures than we shall be able to fulfil in the time at our disposal." Mr Reade was welcomed to Wellington at the wharf by members of the joint committee of the Municipal Electors' Association and the Architects' Institute. The visitor is accompanied by Mrs. Reade; they are staying at the Hotel Cecil.

Wellington Evening Post, 13 July 1914, Page 2

NOT A FAD

PLANNING FOR THE PUBLIC.

"Town-planning is a subject which is receiving more and more attention from the press and people of this country (Australia)," said Mr. W. M. Hughes, late Attorney-General in the Federal Labour Ministry. It is a subject which vitally concerns all classes, as the free lantern lecture at the Town Hall on Wednesday evening will clearly prove. In his preliminary tour of New Zealand, Mr. Charles C. Reade found very pleasing evidence that earnest men were eager to help in a rational town-planning movement, which makes for better citizenship. "It is not only a matter of convenient streets or orderly grouping of buildings," Sir William Lever remarked, last year. "It is fundamentally a matter of sound business principle. A man who has the power and means to order a home for himself will naturally make it comfortable and beautiful. Not every individual present can havo exactly the home of his heart's desire, but he can make a start towards the ideal. People, in the mass, have the power and the means to order a sane development of their towns; they can demand that the rights of the public shall prevail against the shortsightedness of private speculation and greed." How? The free illustrated lecture will show the way.

W.R. Davidge & Charles C. Reede
Australasian Town Planning Tour 1914
Wellington lectures, New Zealand

Wellington Evening Post, 15 July 1914, Page 8

ARBOR DAY

BEAUTIFYING THE CITY

TREE-PLANTING ON TOWN BELT

TO-DAY'S WORK.

With the closing of the schools and Government and insurance offices to-day a large number of citizens and boys and girls are devoting their energies towards beautifying the city, and bright sunshine smiled upon their work. The principal effort this year is devoted to planting about two and a half acres of the reserve at the back of Mein-street, the entrance to which, instead of being an eyesore, as it was for many years, is now prettily planted with native shrubs. The Mayor (Mr. J. P. Luke) and Mrs. and Miss Luke, accompanied by Councillor Frost (chairman of the Reserves Committee) and Mrs. Frost, Mr. J. R. Palmer (Town Clerk), and Mr. W. H. Morton (City Engineer), were received by Mr. J. Castle (president), and Mr. H. Preston and Rev. J. Crewes, vice-presidents of the Wellington South Progressive Association. From an early hour this morning the boys and girls attending the Newtown School were busily at work preparing the ground under the supervision of Mr. H. A. Parkinson, M.A., headmaster. The area was cleared of gorse by Mr. J. M'Pherson (City Forester), who has already planted hundreds of trees and shrubs upon the area set apart for the custody of the boys and girls. The pupils will, in course of time, plant other trees and care for them. Among the visitors at the ceremony was Mr. W. R. Davidge, of the London County Council, who has come to the Dominion to interest people in town-planning. Mrs. Davidge accompanied her husband, and trees are to be planted to commemorate their visit.

CO-OPERATION OF BOYS AND GIRLS.

The Mayor said that the idea which they should have before them to-day was the co-operation of the citizens with the City Council in the beautifying of their city. Boys and girls, in planting trees on this portion of the Town Belt, were doing something that was visible to-day, but would be more visible in the years to come. Everything depended in the future upon the boys and girls, and they should use their influence amongst themselves to care for and foster, not alone the trees they planted, but also the trees that were planted by other people. In a few years, he reminded them, they would be taking the places of those who were now doing the work. When they became members of the City Council and members of Parliament, they would then be able to look back with pleasure to what they had done to-day as school children. Credit for what had been done was due to the Reserves Committee, to Mr. Morton, Mr. Glen, and Mr. M'Pherson. This co-operation amongst the council and its officers and the public was going to make Wellington a place where people would come with pleasure. He urged upon the boys and girls to look upon themselves as co-partners, and by protecting their own trees on this reserve and the trees planted by others they would make a great improvement in their city, and would prevent the vandalism that was so noticeable in other cities of the Dominion. The trees that Mr. Henry Wright had planted were evidence of what could be done on the Town Belt.

Mrs. Luke, who was called upon, followed in a crisp little speech, saying that if she could not speak as well as her husband, she could plant treas better than he could, as they would find by going to the Kilbirnie school. They came there to-day, said the Mayoress, to do honour to the boys and girls who had guaranteed to plant and look after the trees on this reserve.

87,000 TREES PLANTED.

Councillor Frost, chairman of the Reserves Committee, said that 87,000 trees had been planted during the last few years in the parks, gardens, and Town Belt. If the people of Wellington would take as much interest in tree planting as Mr. Crewes had done in the Zoological Garden, they would soon beautify the whole of it. To-day they were distributing 1000 trees amongst the schools and residents for planting. Mr. Henry Wright had not alone planted a portion of the Town. Belt, but had given a donation of £5 towards beautifying the entrance of the Mein-street reserve. They wanted a little more of that spirit. A writer in the Taranaki Herald had lately advised all visitors to Wellington to go to the Botanical Gardens ; and yet not one-half of the people of Wellington had ever visited these gardens. He had much pleasure, as chairman of the Reserves Committee, in vesting this portion of the Town Belt in the committee of the Newtown School.

FORESTS OF TREES.

Mr. John Smith said that a lot of trees had been planted in this reserve in the early days, but they had perished from want of proper attention. He remembered when all the hills on the other side of Wellington, right out to Makara, were covered with dense bush, but on the Newtown side of the harbour there were never any trees growing in the memory of the oldest of the Natives, though there was evidence in the gullies on the other side of Mount Victoria that a forest had at one time existed there. If the efforts of the headmaster and boys and girls of the Newtown School were successful, no doubt other schools would imitate their example in helping to beautify the city. Mr. Parkinson said the step had not been taken rashly, as the children had been consulted, and had expressed their willingness to plant and look after the reserve. Ho looked forward to the time when the children would be learning some of their lessons under the shade of these trees, though he might not be there to see it.

Short addresses were also delivered by the Rev. J. Crewes, Mr H. W. Preston, and others.

COMMEMORATIVE TREES.

Trees to commemorate the event were then planted. A row of chestnuts will afterwards be planted to commemorate the names of the Mayor and Mayoress and Miss Luke, Councillor Frost and Mrs. Frost, Mr. John Smith, Mr. H. A. Parkinson, Mr. A. A. Geoige, the Rev. I John Crowes, Mr. A. Crosby, Mrs. Castle, sen., Mr. Henry Wright, Mr. W. R. Davidge (London County Council) and Mrs. Davidge.

SOUTH WELLINGTON SCHOOL.

At South Wellington School, work in connection with the improvement and beautifying of the grounds has been going on quietly for the past year. All trees planted in previous years have been well looked after and arc now showing good growth. The varieties planted are mostly Australian and New Zealand sorts, including kowhai, karaka, ngaio, totara, ribbonwood, and matipo. Among the many improvements have been the laying-out and planting of two large flower-beds. This was done by the scholars, directed by the headmaster, Mr. George Flux. Twenty plots have also been provided for the children, each one to be cultivated by two children. These are well sheltered from the prevailing winds, and are on an ideal spot for the children for gardening purposes. It is hoped that the children will be able this year to hold their first flower show of the exhibits grown on the school grounds.

Lower down the gully a small area has been laid out as a nursery. On the other side of the main path is the site for the proposed sand play-house for the infants, now before the Education Board. At the rear of the site a beginning has been made with the erection of a rose pergola. As the roses were planted last year, this season should see it covered blooms. Future operations on this spot will be in the direction of planting it with native trees, about 8 ft apart. Each tree will be enclosed in a guard to protect it from injury while the children are playing around the sand-house. The ugly play bank is gradually being covered with creepers, but owing to the nature of the ground, growth is naturally slow.

Altogether, the committee feels pleased with the progress and growth of its beautifying scheme, and intends to continue the work.

BROOKLYN SCHOOL.

As is Brooklyn's custom, the children of the school assembled in the grounds in commemoration of Arbor Day, and to assist in beautifying the surroundings by tree-planting, etc. After the New Zealand Ensign had been hoisted, the headmaster (Mr. J. B. Hopkirk) addressed the scholars. The youngsters, under supervision of their teachers, then set to business in earnest. A good deal of useful work was accomplished during the day, and will be continued until late in August. The higher standard boys deserve praise for the hard work accomplished during the past three weeks.

OBSERVANCE IN HUTT VALLEY.

Tree planting was not indulged in to any extent in the Hutt Valley to-day. In Petone a number of school children were to be seen armed with spades and various other garden implements, but very little actual planting was done. A number of trees and plants which were put in some considerable time ago, however, received attention, and at noon the scholars were dismissed for the day. There was an animated scene at the Lower Hutt District High School, where the children displayed commendable enthusiasm. Besides planting fresh trees and shrubs, the scholars also tended those already planted, after which operations the children, like their Petone contemporaries, were given an afternoon off.

Wellington Evening Post, 16 July 1914, Page 2

TOWN-PLANNING

ACCESS, BEAUTY, AND COMFORT

THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM

LECTURE IN THE TOWN HALL.

Arguments in favour of town-planning, the beneficial results of town-planning, and something about the methods to attain success in it, were set out in a lecture given in the Town Hall last evening. The speakers were Mr W. R. Davidge and Mr. C. C. Reade, who are now touring Australasia giving addresses in the interests of the communities they visit, on behalf of the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association, London. There was a large audience, and the chair was occupied by the Mayor of Wellington (Mr. J. P. Luke).

Mr. Davidge stated that the subject .of town-planning was stirring all parts of the civilised world. America was as keenly interested as Europe, and everywhere legislation embodying its principles was in force or was being sought. He explained the elementary ideal in planning a town by means of a diagram. The business city was shown, with its manufacturing centre on the lee side (as far as the prevailing winds allowed), and surrounded by a belt of open spaces. Beyond these lay small garden suburbs, quite detached from the city proper, but connected with it and with each other by direct roads. Wellington, he said, was fortunate in having been provided from the first with a belt of reserves, which had been largely preserved without encroachment.

Much of the lecture was given up to rapid sketches of the great town-planning schemes in operation in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Continental towns; but continually the speaker drew attention to the need for early action. In the ring of planned suburbs about London, he said, 102 miles of arterial roads had been laid out. They could be brought right up to the closely built-up area of the city; but had a proper plan been adopted even only twenty years ago, the now enormous cost of carrying them into the city by widening existing narrow streets would have been greatly reduced. Newer towns, Wellington among them, should take warning.

PLAN FAR AHEAD,

The essential point, Mr. Davidge said, was to plan far ahead in regard to the arteries and larger features, and not to lay down a mass of detail design which might require modification later on. He pointed out that the experience of one city might be the experience of all. Towns everywhere developed in much the same way. The population showed a growth which was often in an increasing ratio. Between 1801 and 1911 London had grown from one to seven millions in population, and it was quite conceivable that in a century Wellington would have seven times its present population. It was necessary to avoid many errors that had been made in the older countries, said Mr. Davidge. In Liverpool slum areas had been cleared away, but only at such enormous cost that the "model dwellings" which had been erected in their places had to be really barracks to give an adequate return on the outlay. "The people of England are keenly anxious," he said, "that the younger countries of the world shall not make the same eort of mistake, and will make their plans now. That is why this tour has been undertaken. "

"Hold fast to the privileges you have," ,he urged. When Sir Christopher Wren planned a new London after the Great Fire, one of the adopted features was a row of quays along the river eastward of Blackfriars Bridge. There still exists the Thames Embankment, but to the west, the esplanade feature, for two miles, has disappeared, though the original quays remained for 150 years. First people were allowed to deposit goods on them; then to put up temporary shelters. A careless policy allowed those to be replaced with permanent ones, and now the Thames was fringed with warehouses. There was in this, said Mr. Davidge, a lesson for Wellington as well as for other cities in New Zealand.

CONGESTION OF TRAFFIC.

Dealing with the question of congestion of traffic, the speaker said that the tendency to increase the height of buildings brought about by the high cost of land (this in turn a result of speculation) was a most prolific cause. He quoted the Woolworth Building in New York. It was 58 storeys high, and held ten thousand tenants. The sky-scraper had enormously increased the congestion of the streets and there was now a frantic effort to prevent the building of any more. In Wellington the legal limit to the height of buildings was 100 feet; in London, 80 feet; and he could not see why the London limit should not be big enough for Wellington. He added that the central tram-poles would have to go soon; they helped much to congest traffic.

"There is no reason," continued the lecturer, "why a town should continue to grow in a solid mass till it contains several million people. There is no reason why it should not consist of a series of communities linked together by rapid transit facilities— trams, electric railways, and so on. There are plenty of means nowadays for quick travel." There was no need to spend much money on town-planning, it was explained. The idea was to lay out the streets and spaces that were required for future developments, and then, as the land was taken up for building purposes, the newly-occupied areas must be fitted to the adopted plans, which in themselves did not require any large purchases.

Concluding his address, Mr. Davidge said that the ABC of town-planning could be expressed in the words "access, beauty, and convenience."

THE ECONOMIC ASPECT.

Mr. Reade dealt chiefly with the economic aspect of town-planning. He quoted Paris, Berlin; and 'other Continental cities, as having made the mistake of planning beautiful main thoroughfares and forgetting the slums, which developed simultaneously. He gave numerous illustrations of the evil effects of overgrown land values. When speculation forced the values to a high point the people had to live in crowded dwellings, to fulfil the necessary condition that they could pay the rents and the rents give a fair return for the capital invested. The German city of Ulms was quoted as showing the solution of the problem. Ulms purchased a large quantity of land outside the city boundary, built houses on it, and sold the residences and the land, to its own great financial advantage as a corporation ; and it made the proviso that if anyone wanted to re-sell, the city had the right to buy the property back at the original price. Mr. Reade showed figures indicating the tremendous accretions of value in land in the hands of speculators. The Jervois Estate, Ponsonby, Auckland, for instance, was sold in 1901 for £3950. It was sold in 1903 for £11,500 to purchasers who spent £7600 on improving it, and sold it again in 1910 for £36,000; and its value was now officially put at over £78,000. The unimproved value of Miramar in 1890 was £10,000. In 1905 it reached £300,000, at which time the city had a chance to purchase it ; now it is worth £700,000. He contrasted these figures with the rentals charged for cottages of three bedrooms and a living room, scullery, and bathroom, in Letchworth, England — 4s 3d a week.

The lecturers received a most appreciative hearing, and were accorded a hearty vote of thanks.

Wellington Evening Post, 17 July 1914, Page 8

TOWN-PLANNING

THEORY AND PRACTICE

THE CONVENIENT ROAD.

Town-planning, from the more technical side, was dealt with in a lecture by Mr. W. R. Davidge, of the Garden Cities and Town-planning Association, last night. His address was given in the Sydney-street Hall, before a fair audience. It was, like the more popular lecture given the previous evening in the Town Hall, liberally illustrated with lantern slides. The first part of the lecture dealt with a theoretical exposition of some of the principles of town-planning. Then Mr. Davidge, elaborating precepts, held up examples of what had been done, and made pointed references to Wellington as a field for applying the town-planning ideal. He explained at the outset that three main matters must be considered as inseparably connected — the contour of the land, the transit facilities, and the necessary housing of the people. Contour settled the positions of the main roads, as the lecturer clearly showed by exhibiting the design for the Australian Federal capital, Canberra, as laid out on a, contour model. Wellington was, he said, peculiarly difficult to plan without a deal of careful thought, because of its hilliness. The lecturer then showed numerous plans, of Calcutta, Delhi, and a host of German and American cities, in all of which planned developments had been carried out with the view of either improving an existing town or extending it. They were selected with the object of showing more especially the need for considering how a main road should be fitted; after considering the contour of the ground, chiefly to the requirements of traffic. The beauty of curved streets, and of straight streets with the line of sight interrupted by something worth looking at, was discussed; and the speaker illustrated the German tendency to reproduce the picturesqueness of the crooked mediaeval street. After the need for convenience of traffic thoroughfares, Mr. Davidge spoke of the wholesome residential road — narrow, flanked with green, and quiet — and of the belts, parks, and squares of park land and open space which were a very important feature of planned towns. His explanation of the development of rectangular, diagonal, and radial designs in laying out towns was most interesting, but he pointed out with emphasis that none of these formal systems was of any use unless it conformed with the ground and led traffic the way it wanted to go. Illustrations were given of the hackneyed lay-out of the commercially cut-up estate, and by contrast Mr. Davidge showed alternative designs for cutting up one block. In each case the came number of houses was included. In the rectangular plan, 1550 feet of roadway to 75 houses were shown; with no provision for open spaces. In the other, a "garden suburb" design with curved roads, the road length was only 1130 feet, and there were several little parks. These plans, he said, were eloquent of the fact that town-planning could be made to pay. Town-planning, he explained, could only be begun and carried out by hearty co-operation among all those concerned, and by getting statutory power to lay down a plan. Then the plan must be carried well into the future. "It is never too early to plan," he said ; "but it may easily be too late. The possibilities of Wellington in this respect are enormous." He added that after all the whole object of town-planning was to improve the conditions in which people lived. It should be the constant aim of any adopted system to ensure that the homes of the people, oven of the very poorest of them, should be homes in every sense of the word. "You are raising a tremendous loan in Wellington for various works," he said finally. "I hope that before any of it is spent you will look carefully to the future." A few of those present asked questions, and several others stayed to interview Mr. Davidge.

FINAL LECTURE TO-NIGHT.

Very interesting facts about New Zealand cities will be given by Mr. Charles Reade in his illustrated lecture, "Garden Cities v. New Zealand Slums," at the Newtown Library Hall to-night. Mr. Reade, who exposed some shabby parts of Auckland and Wellington some years ago, will shed some fresh light on an old topic. The purpose of Mr. Reade's words and his many pictures will be to endeavour to meet local evils for the benefit of the general public. Citizens will have a chance to learn how to act for the welfare of themselves and their children, and the teaching process promises to be as lively as it will be helpful.

Wellington Evening Post, 17 July 1914, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Greater Wellington's Future

Thoughtful friends of Wellington may well hope that some of the folk with a blind bias against town-planning have heard the envoys from Britain. Mr. Davidge, last night, gave pleasant corroboration of The Post's evidence that the rules of common-sense and self-interest alone should command public respect for town-planning. Many a time we have stressed the need for a long vision— some regard for the time, not inconceivably distant, when New Zealand's capital will have a population of two hundred thousand or more. Many a time, too, The Post has discussed the elementary need of sane co-operation of men competent to help in the right shaping of a city's growth, and the theory of this subject was compressed into three words— (l) common-sense, (2) co-operation, (3) imagination (capacity to estimate possible or probable congestion, costs of delay or neglect, and so on). The message of Mr. Davidge, a distinguished engineer, surveyor, and architect, is not a compost of flowery phrases; his message is the advice of a practical man, requesting people to admit the advantages of looking before leaping and to recognise that intelligent orderliness, carefully planned, is preferable to haphazardness. Cynics who may have expected fantastic talk of millions for resumptions, to turn the town upside down, are still expecting. As Mt. Davidge has said, the initial expenditure is to be in reasoning, an outlay of clear thought. For a beginning he asks the people to dip into their own minds, not into their pockets. The lesson of the pictures and the explanations is: The City Beautiful is the City Comfortable, Healthy, and Profitable.