Page:The Preservation of Places of Interest or Beauty, 1907.djvu/26

 after the establishment of the servitude any unauthorized alteration of the plan is a punishable offence.

It is to be noticed that this law relies on local action, and does not, as in the case of historic monuments, make any drafts upon the National Treasury. Probably, however, in appropriate cases grants in aid would be made by the central government. And independently of the machinery employed, as a manifestation of opinion the Act is remarkable.

In Paris, again, some of the older parts of the City, such as the Place Vendôme and the Place des Vosges, are subject to restrictions,—imposed at the time when the State or the City of Paris sold large parcels of land,—which prescribe a symmetrical architectural composition, building lines, and a certain amount of open space. These seem to be scrupulously observed; whereas in London we are unable to preserve an architectural effect when we have it. The great thoroughfare laid out by Nash, comprising Waterloo Place, Regent Street and Portland Place, embodied, a few years ago one general idea. But the Commissioners of Woods have allowed the symmetry of design to be hopelessly marred. Piccadilly Circus is no longer a Circus or any other nameable area, and in Waterloo Place and Regent Street the building lines have been broken, and excrescences, wholly out of keeping with the scale and style of Nash’s work, have been allowed.

The state of the law in Germany differs largely from that in France. There is no Imperial Law on the subject of Historic Monuments. Each State legislates (so far as it does legislate) for itself, and only one, that of