Correspondence

A MANCHESTER LETTER.

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sta,—A distinguished American- visitor who was recently in Manchester said that the place reminded him of Chicago. Yet we have no " Big Bill," our Lord Mayor being con- spicuously sober and untheatrieal ; we have no machine-gun motor bandits, odorous stockyards, or magnificent lakeside boulevard. It must, then, have been the commercial spirit of Manchester which caused the comparison with Chicago, and in particular, the Ship Canal. The distinguished visitor must have been taken to see the Ship Canal. All distinguished visitors are. " Yesterday the King of Afghan- istan was taken down the Ship Canal." " To-morrow Sir Ofori Atte will be taken down the Ship Canal." Either the Ship Canal is the brightest jewel in Manchester's crown or it has an excellent publicity agent, or perhaps there is a bit of both. Certainly as an institution it has no rival, except Mr. C. P. Scott, who accords to others, but himself evades, publicity.

But this comparison with Chicago is, after all, disquieting. Perhaps the visitor was really imputing to us only a crude commercialism, energetic and bouncing but vulgar, the Babbitry of commerce. If so, he did us a little less than justice. There are some quite new things in the heart of Manchester which deserve to be shown to the Solomons and Queens of Sheba at least as much as the Ship Canal ; perhaps more so, since the Canal is the creative effort of the last generation and the new commercial buildings—for those are the really exciting things in Manchester to-day—are the conception and the product of the present.

Manchester, in the large, is a city of undistinguished buildings. Sporadically planted, one or two of them in such a way that you can only appreciate them at the cost of a crick in the neck, are some good civic structures, and there is one street of fine commercial houses. But in chronology these are almost all mid-Victorian. And now, suddenly, in the centre of the city have sprung up, built and building, a dozen commercial structures which arrest and gratify the most fastidious eye. Some of them lofty, seeking the light, and all of them distinguished in their simplicity and con- veying the impression of a spare and powerful energy, they suggest a lively movement of ideas beneath Chicagoan strata. It may mean little or much, but it is at least a sign. No doubt this outburst is partly due to our possession of architects of taste and judgment, among whom Mr. Harry Fairhurst is conspicuous, but architects cannot call the tune unless business men will pay the piper, and paying him they are, and presumably approving of these austere homes of commerce, unostentatious but wonderfully imposing, which they are getting for their money. The Ship Canal ,Company, the

Bleachers' Combine, the English Sewing Cotton Company, the Post Office Telephone Department, banks, insurance and shipping firms are among those who have lit, or who uphold, the torch. Good architecture, like great drama, is

often the product of a ferment of ideas in a people. Is our new architecture only an adaptation to Manchester needs of what has already been done in other countries, or is it a symptom of independence which will be followed by activity in the other arts, or at least will our commercial Maecenases encourage that activity ? There is little sign of this, perhaps, but it is the most interesting question which the stranger in Manchester might ask.

In truth, in art and letters progress is slow. Maecenas, for the most part, lives out of his own city ; perhaps, did he not do so, he would more readily be the patron of its arts. Still, traces of a promised land come within sight. The scheme for the erection of a great public library advances towards the long-deferred goal and its completion will make a way for the construction of the art gallery of which the plans were long ago accepted. When there is visible evidence that Manchester cares enough about its books and pictures

to house them nobly, benefactors will arise within and without to give books and pictures to be nobly housed. Both art

gallery and library in their present homes are administered with lively enterprise. Sir William Boyd-Dawkins has lately presented to the city a wonderful collection of drawings showing representations of animals made by primitive man.

The Rylands has perfected its task of assembling a new library for Louvain contributed from many different sources, and the Librarian, Dr. Guppy, attended the recent ceremony of inauguration. The Rylands, too, that little jewel rising from a drab sea, keeps up its brilliant contributions to the literature of early Christian times ; the latest Bulletin has two interesting additions to the Apocrypha in the shape of new Mingana manuscripts.

The stage languishes, but the Rusholme Repertory theatre still offers an occasional novelty of interest, while Mr. Cochran still tries and polishes his London shows upon us before they go to London : a compliment, no doubt, but unhappily two-edged if " the provinces " are to be more than a London suburb with a character of their own. The Manchester B.B.C.

will, before long, move into new and more imposing premises. One may predict that it will help in no small measure to main•

taro a distinctive flavour of Manchester and the North. Lord Rothermere's new evening paper, if it comes, will cut the other way. A " chain " newspaper will with difficulty breathe in, or out, the local atmosphere which, vaguely but unmistakably, marks the rivals which it will have to meet. That atmosphere is an important part of their strength. If the stranger finds us dull in politics and trade, quiescent in the arts though brisk in architecture, let him turn to cur sports for signs of robust life. We started dogs, made betting easy for the masses, and then pointed out its dangers. Now we have started " dirt-tracks." Two already exist and a third is on the way. Twenty-five or thirty thousand people at a meeting watch motor cyclists " broadsiding " round sharp curves on the flat. There is, they say, no betting ; only the thrill of " broadsiding " and the clean and wholesome attraction of the prospect of a dangerous spill.

The congestion of the streets grows worse. The 'bus has invaded the province long sacred to the tram. One runs, it may be, to Ashton or Cheadle just beyond the city bounds, another to London. All together join with motor traffic, horse-lorries, and trams in a fine jam. The advocates of the

'bus say that it will drive the tram off the streets. Their opponents retort that trams are the cheapest and most efficient method of transport yet invented and that, anyway, many millions of capital are sunk in them, so least said, soonest mended.

Shall married women be allowed to teach ? The Manchester City Council has instructed the Education Committee that they shall. The Education Committee then decided that a teacher expecting to be confined shall be absent for five months before confinement and twelve months afterwards. The majority call this taking due care of mother and child. Some others say that it was a way of circumventing the wishes of the Council. The result at least was certain—increased birth control—had the decision been confirmed, but the City Council has stuck to its guns and ordered that six months, three before confinement and three afterwards, shall be the period " off-duty."—I am, Sir, &e.,

YOUR MANCHESTER CORRESPONDENT.