UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE GARDEN CITY.
[TO Tila EDITOR Or TII "SPEoraTon.'] SIR,—Thoughtful writers on the unemployment question have recently pointed out that the only really hopeful way to give immediate relief to the position, without demoralisation, is to promote useful work, and to have it done as far as possible under the usual conditions of employment, through a contractor or foreman. The doing of such work under such conditions is a profitable expenditure on capital account, inasmuch as it produces for the person, or group, or community carrying it out an asset at least equal in value to the cost of its production. At the same time, it affords additional employment free from any taint of charity or pauperism, and must, therefore, draw into employment the best men among those who at present are unemployed or under-employed. The critical question is,—where can we find such work, which would not be done in the ordinary course? It is not my intention to attempt here to answer that question in its national aspect. I want, however, if you will allow me, to call attention to one not inconsiderable piece of such work, the doing of which would not only help to relieve present unemployment, on the sound and wholesome lines I have tried to indicate, but would also advance the accomplishment of a great social object-lesson, for which you, Sir, have repeatedly shown your sympathy.
Four years ago, in the very early days of the First Gar.len City at Letchworth, the Press kindly published a statement from us, as a result of which some £2,000 was taken up by the public in the shares of the First Garden City, Ltd., and specially earmarked for employing at Letchworth men drawn from the London unemployed. They helped us to make our first roads, and 1 o level the site which is now the Great Northern Railway's goods yard, and the money. which employed them remains an invest- ment belonging to those who found it,—an investment which we are all convinced will some day bring them in their 6 per cent. cumulative dividend. Since then Letchworth has grown to twelve hundred buildings, with a population estimated at about six thousand people, largely of the industrial class, employed at the dozen or so factories and workshops which have been established there.
And now we desire to repeat that early experiment—with somo improvements, however—employing the men under the ordinary conditions of labour, and choosing them, not because they are registered as unemployed, but because they prove their unem- ployedness by coming to get work. Our town is divided into two parts by the Great Northern Railway, and those two parts are connected by a footbridge at one point, and a very narrow arch under the railway at another. We are willing to put in hand a wide bridge under the railway and a carriage-bridge over it. Also we are prepared at once to construct the permanent sewage works, which the growth of Letchworth will shortly require. These three works, which will cost together about .812,000, would none of them in the ordinary course be undertaken this year, perhaps not next. They can, however, all be most usefully undertaken at once, and my present object is, by your kindness, to invite those interested in the unemployed question to find the necessary capital. Those who do so will thereby contribute in the best possible way to the relief of unemployment, while they will help the Garden City to develop more quickly than it otherwise would. Their contributions will not be gifts, but investments,— yet not mere investments,—as ours is not a merely commercial speculation. Our secretary will gladly send application forms and all information to those who write to him at Letchworth, Herts. Applications for one share of £5, or for any number, will be Letchworth, Herts. Chairman First Garden City, Ltd.
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