IDEALISM IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sift,—In a popular volume on Local Government which has just been published there occurs the following quotation from the late John Galsworthy, new to me, and possibly to many of your other readers :
"Let us fantastically conceive the civic authorities solemnly resolving : We will re-make a city so beautiful and sweet to dwell in that those who come after us shall think us mad to have attempted it..'"
At a time when anything in the nature of civic improvement IS not merely questioned, but actively condemned—and usually vetoed—the quotation brings a ray of hope. Gals- worthy was speaking actually of London, but he might have said it of any other city or town.
Time was when our Local Authorities were allowed to Plan ahead. Is it too much to suggest that those who are standing in the way of progress to-day, for many are, should study the quotation and then consider what our civic life to-day would be like if there had not been some in times past who were "mad enough to have attempted it" ?—I am, Sir, J. R. CLYNES. 41 St. John's Road, Putney, S. W. 15.
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