but the squalid tenements and alleys which are packed away behind them would disappear.  A long chain of parks and gardens would unite the West and East, taking the place of a host of rotten rabbit-warrens, which are a disgrace to any civilised community.  There would be no quarter of the town relinquished to the absolutely poor; Poplar would have its palaces of wealthy merchants as well as Kensington, St. Albans on the north, Reigate on the south, would mark the limits of the city, and all the intervening space would be filled with thriving colonies of Londoners, living in well-built houses with ample gardens.  Manufactories would be distributed as well as mansions.  The various trades would not be huddled together in narrow inconvenient corners of the metropolis; the factory, removed a dozen miles from Charing Cross, would take its workers with it, and become the nucleus of a new township.  The artisan would thus work within sight of his house, and that entire dislocation of home-life, involved by present conditions of labour, would disappear.  And each of these townships would have its baths, libraries, and technical schools, not dependent on local enterprise or generosity, but administered by a central body, composed of men of wide views and experience, who should deserve the great title of the City Fathers; and each would be saved from the narrow spirit of suburbanism by the proud sense of its corporate unity with London.

Such a London no doubt bears the aspect of a futile dream; yet it is worth while pointing out that in a dim and feeble way this has been the ideal after which London has been groping ever since the day when the population first overflowed its normal boundaries.  The mischief has been that nothing has been done upon a grand scale and by organised effort.  A bit of open space has been bought for a park here and there, while a much larger bit has passed into the builder’s hands through local indifference or apathy.  New suburbs have arisen in a day, not because any central power willed it, but simply by the combined greed, energy, and enterprise of the speculative builder, who invariably builds rotten houses, which he sells as fast as he can to guileless people with a passion for owning house-property.  The result has been confusion, waste, and disappointment.  The new township rises without any adequate provision for roads or railway accommodation.  It is filled by a migratory population who do not realise these inconveniences or ignore them, as long as the novelty of the thing charms them; presently they move off again, a poorer population takes their place, rents drop, and another suburb is left to a precarious existence.  I contend that this necessary expansion of the metropolis should not be left to caprice; it should be designed upon broad lines of development.  The London County Council should buy up every acre of land that comes into the market within a thirty-five mile radius of Central London.  It should be for the Council