:STALEMATE IN ENGLISH CITIES.
WHEN he considers the problems presented by Sheffield, the traveller has got to remember that Sheffield only shows him an instance of problems which are 'repeated all over England, and the industrial part Of • Scotland, and that Sheffield is by no means an extremely unfavourable example of a British manufacturing town. The unpleasant points of Sheffield can, everyone seems agreed, be matched in at least ten or a dozen instances at Tyneside, the Potteries, the Rhondda Valley, on the Clyde, and in the cotton districts round Manchester,- for example. Again, he must remember that Sheffield's plight, and that of these other places, is not the fault of their present-day inhabitants. Sheffield is, I think, in spite of its rather grim reputation, a typical town, because many towns have not Sheffield's one signal advantage an advantage which was the first one which I heard its more enthusiastic inhabitants claim for it—it is easy to get out of. By means of trams and 'buses you can, in a quarter of an hour or so, get out to a countryside. A short drive brings you to fine, bracing moors, which between the wind and the city's smoke are almost treeless, but where you may hear larks and see a view. These moors 'have a real nobility of contour, a steep, stimulating, flung-about look, without being actually rocky, and, though grimmer and not so rounded, have also something of the refined, ascetic beauty of the South Downs.
But what of the town itself ? What is Sheffield for ? I have been accused in another context of dipping my ,pen in " hog's gall," but even to me it is difficult to write sincerely about Sheffield, for Sheffield seemed to me a stricken town, a town between which and any amelioration lies, like a barrier, a ridge of high unemployment figures. Sheffield is tragically poor and is indeed officially a " necessitous area." It is-the first of the " dead " towns that -I have seen. Nothing seems to be happening in Sheffield. Leeds, with much the same problems, but less hampered by poverty, is buzzing with improvements, but Sheffield seems in a sort of lethargy. Mr. Oakley, the editor of the Sheffield Telegraph, told me of the plans which he and .some other enlightened people in Sheffield have for the city's improvement. They turn, as usual, upon smoke abatement and housing, and are much like those which are being put.into practice in Leeds,.but there seems no immediacy :about the -town's plans for better- ment,; I saw no ,new buildings, for instance, save half-a- dozen bad speculative -villas. The housing scheme, which I heard of but did not see, dates from before the War, midis- on a scale so inadequate that about two thousand people are already living in army -huts. I commented on all this, -and was told that practically no building had ,been possible in Sheffield since the War. Was no pro- vision being made for better ,times, or how about the inevitable increase in .population ? I asked if any attempts had been made to undertake urgent improve- ments by means of unemployed labour, but was told that here the workers were fax too skilled to be .employed on ,anything such as. road-making, and my suggestion of the usual parallel of such work being none in the War was passed over as -no precedent. Besides, . it appears that the rates are already crushingly heavy. Once more I .was• intent to know what Sheffield was Tor. Then dansons la Car/nag:tole. Perhaps the pleasure life of theplacz was strong-and vigorous. With some difficulty I got news of a Playgoers' Society which fora week a year performs such plays as The. Admirable Crichton. There..is.a.,some- What wilting theatre—I .am not sure if Sheffield is a second or third-class tour, and there is no large hall in Sheffield, either , private or 'municipal, which suitable for concerts. This does much to cramp the musical life of the place, which shows intelligence and vigour. I heard rumours of dinner and supper dancing at various hotels, but there is no regular and cheap Palais de Dame, though lately there has been a movement by the Sunday schools, which in a small way provide dancing facilities. I heard, too, of Morris dancing in the elementary schools. That was all, save, of course, those torches in the darkness, the cinemas and the infusion of the mild civilizing influ- ence of the University.
It is a relief to turn from Sheffield to Hull. Grimy Leeds is made tolerable to the inquiring traveller by the energy and foresight of her housing schemes ; Hull, though with charms hardly at all the result of human foresight, I yet freely acknowledge I slandered in a previous article when I called it lamentable.
That popular addition to the Litany, " From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us," will have to be altered. Hull in 1924 is extraordinarily unHell-like, at least very different from my idea of Hell, which to be itself must surely contain an element of the steely, the purposeful and the coherent ; whereas the first thing that will strike a traveller about Hull is that it is a quite peculiarly human place. Muddled, dirty and exasperating, yes ; but diabolic and disagreeable, no.
In the first place its chipping gives it a warm and living fascination. Here and there in the city you come upon a sudden basin full of brightly-painted barges or timber ships from Norway ; you walk down what seems a street, look up and find that one side of it is a ship in dry-dock, or you are shown dark entries down which smugglers once rolled their little kegs of brandy, or hurried with an oilskin-wrapped package of lace. A certain number of broad roads have been driven through the town too. But against this we must set the fact that there is scarcely a fine piece of architecture in the place (the Town Hall is a big, cheerful, strapping building but no beauty). Then, again, the main railway lines run almost through the heart of the town, and a drive through Hull is punctuated by a series of hold-ups at level crossings. I believe the language used by princes of industry who thus miss one of those twenty thousand pound appointments is hard to better. The attitude of the Corporation here is curious. The one work of art in Hull, Peter Scheemakers' gilded lead statue of William III., is dwarfed by four enormous east-iron lamps and its pedestal used to display the Corporation's notices about rubbish disposal or Income Tax. Nor is this the end of their misdeeds ; the chimney of their electric works is one of the most fruitful sources of smoke in Hull.
And yet, in spite of muddle and ugliness, no one could help liking Hull, beautiful or ugly, efficient or inefficient. Not certainly considered absolutely, but judged by that low standard that is involuntarily setting itself up in my mind as the only one by which English industrial towns can be judged, Hull is attractive. It is, for instance, incomparably better than places like Rotherham or Mexborough. It is a world away from those dreadful conglomerations of grimy, cracking houses and scum-edged water pools which speculative building with its rows, and mining with ground settlements and smoke, have made the typical Lancashire village. But Hull will be put to the question some day. The new age is going to ask questions of all these places. It is going to ask, Is Hull a residential city, a place, that is, for the rearing and pleasant housing of well-nourished and intelligent human beings, or was it designed mainly as a port ? And whichever answer is given, the new age is going to point either to certain slums or to those railway lines aforementioned, and object. Indeed, though Hull has a far better answer ready than many towns, it may find itself in an awkward situation, because question time for it may come very early. Hull hopes to be the port for the new great South Yorkshire_ coalfields which have been and are being developed, and questioris about docks and especially about those strangling railway lines are going to be asked. Yet whatever is asked the traveller will feel that Hull must have a better answer ready than Mexborough or Rotherham.
If you had asked, What is Sheffield for ? twenty years ago you would have had an answer back pat enough. It might not have pleased you, but it would have been given with a convincing assurance. Sheffield would have been proud of itself.
"Where there's smoke, there's brass ! "
" Where there's muck, there's money " Or in the prettier drawing-room version, " A smoking chimney means a hundred happy homes."
It vipuld have been the familiar answer that the world's work cannot be carried on in white kid gloves, that Sheffield was busy with the hard work of the world and had no time—hardly inclination—for what she would term the softer things of life. The smoke, the grime, the ugliness were the circumstances of adventure, the thrilling and 'desired hardships of a voyage to Eldorado. But what now ? I am as ignorant as Vol- taire's ingenu at Versailles—I am no industrial expert, of course—but I wondered a little not only in Sheffield, but in Hull, and in Leeds and still more looking out of the train at the miles and miles of mining villages stretched out along the country, whether I was in the presence of industrial efficiency ? Are these rusty, tangled works set in congested streets really efficient ? Why has industry, to which everything has been sacrificed, broken down in Sheffield, for example, where the bad state of trade is the reason of all shortcomings, all neglects ; where the men of vision find themselves in a trap ? That is the point to-day, industry is not fulfilling its sole function. It has ceased to do that for which we have not merely condoned these cinder heaps for thirty years, but made them the nurseries of our race. It is in these places where I was told a blade of grass must be cultivated like an orchid that as a nation we grow our children. These are the conditions in which a large proportion of the British race live.
We seem to have reached an impasse. The ingenu points to the grime, the ugliness, the dreariness, the overcrowding under which human beings are living, conditions inefficient, or as the ingenu will inevitably feel, intolerable for their rearing. These conditions were once thought to be balanced by the wealth engendered in them. Now the warmth of the ferment has failed—the muck has stayed, the money has gone. Population grows; and the industries of our time apparently now do not produce enough money to build the workers shelter, let alone to make their towns homes for them. Soon, unless something happens, industry will declare itself not even able to buy them food and clothes.
All- this is not for Sheffield. I have only taken the town as an instance. Even if in Sheffield the worst conditions were to be found the problem might seem soluble along ordinary lines, but we shall find these things everywhere up and down the country.* We are faced with something which makes the startled newcomer turn to his history books and try to read there what are the symptoms which presage the break- down of civilization. If the problem is insoluble along ordinary lines, it is clear that a real effort by the nation—an effort of brains and consciences as well as backs—could solve it in twenty years.
A. Wimtems-Eins.
• See the series of articles on Glasgow by Mr. Bolitbo just concludettin the litifkab
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