2 MARCH 1934, Page 3

One Hundred New Towns The very interesting town-planning scheme outlined

by Sir Frederick Maurice and others in The Times fully merits detailed study by experts, for, as The Spectator has more than once pointed out, it is essential that industrial development be rationally planned. Sir Frederick and his co-signatories point out that new factories are now being erected which will give employment to 45,000 men, and that the factories under construction in the more normal year of 1929 were to employ 75,000 men. At the latter figure industrial expansion in the next 10 years would give work to 750,000 operatives —enough to provide a productive nucleus for 100 new towns of 50,000 people each. In view of the fact that the needs for new houses during that period are estimated at the very least at a million, why not set about building those new dwellings forthwith in one hundred planned towns, set down, in accordance with a scheme, in the most suitable localities, with proper regard to transport and agricultural supplies ? The financial proposals, though daring, do not go beyond the expenditure in an orderly manner of money which will otherwise be expended in any ease—but in a- chaotic manner.