Page:Garden Cities of To-morrow (1902).djvu/175

Rh "Public Health Engineer," "Municipal Journal," "Argus," "Vegetarian," "Journal of Gas Lighting," "Labour Copartnership," "Hospital," "Brotherhood," "Municipal Reformer."

Nor was the reason of this widespread interest difficult to discover. The project, indeed, touches life at every point, and when once carried out will be an object-lesson which must have far-reaching and beneficial results.

But, although approval of my aims was general, doubts were often, especially at first, expressed as to their readability. Thus, the "Times" said: "The details of administration, taxation, etc., work out to perfection. The only difficulty is to create the city, but that is a small matter to Utopians." If this be so, then, by the "Times' " own showing, I am no Utopian, for to me the building of the city is what I have long set my mind upon, and it is with me no "small matter." A few months after this, however, the "Journal of Gas Lighting" put my case very forcibly thus: "Why should the creation of a town be an insuperable difficulty. It is nothing of the kind. Materials for a tentative realisation of Mr Howard's ideal city exist in abundance in London at the present moment. Time and again it is anounced that some London firm have transferred their factory to Rugby, or Dunstable, or High Wycombe for business reasons. It ought not to be impossible to systematise this movement and give the old country some new towns in which intelligent design shall direct the social workings of economic forces."

In my spare time I lectured on the Garden City, the first lecture after publication being given in