Country Life
A PIONEER COUNTY.
Suggestive evidence of what may be called the technique of progress will be heard at the fourth annual meeting next webk of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. In the past few things have done more to slow down progress and to limit ideas than the ignorance of one local council of what others were doing. Now, thanks largely to the C.P.R.E., an example spreads its influence almost at once. Among the latest pioneer acts is the decision of the County Council of Surrey (once the loveliest of counties) to buy up the verges of the roads. This idea is to stop " ribbon development " ; and the method is for the best. Regional or town planning can do the trick ; but the trouble, not yet surmounted, is that prohibition of building debases the value of land and brings up the question of compensation ; and the last word is apt to lie with the landowner, especially if he is a jerry-builder—a promoter of "concrete mendacities," as angry old Carlyle used to complain.
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