THE DESECRATION OF ENGLAND M R. H. G. STRAUSS, the Member
for Norwich, took the opportunity in last week's debate on• the vote for the Ministry of Health to make an admirable speech on the destruction of England's urban and rural beauty. The Minister of Health, Sir Kingsley Wood, was kind enough to congratulate him on it ; and yet the MiniSter's assurances of sympathy, "that a great deal is being accomplished in this connexion," do little to comfort' those who, like Mr. Strauss, see that every day something more is done to destroy the beauty of a country which was once among the loveliest in the world. It is fair to say that for every building, every landscape, which has been preserved in the last few years, some other has been destroyed ; for the truth is that, owing to the building boom to which we owe our present prosperity, -the destruction of rural beauty has proceeded at a pace which can only be compared with that of the industrial revolution. It seems indeed as if what is left of the countryside in some areas of England— Scotland is not equally imperilled—will only be saved because building will cease of itself, and beauty will be preserved only because destroying it no .longer yields a high rate of profit. The efforts of Parliament, of local anthoritiee, and of private citizens, to prevent the ravages of the speculative builder have been, with some notable exceptions, deplorably like King Canute's efforts to check the waves. Who would guess from the new building On or near the great new roads in the S suth of England.that there was any such thing as a Town and Country Planning Act ?
Yet some powers of control do exist ; and the question is whether the Ministry of Health itself is doing what might be reasOnably expected of it for the preservation of the countryside. There is sometimes too much reason to doubt that. Under the 1932 Act, for example, a provision from which much might have been hoped was that whereby the owners of 75 per cent. of the land in a given area might, by a self-denying ordinance, undertake to preserve their land from building in per- petuity, and the whole area thereupon be sterilised by an order 'Of the Ministry, compensation being paid from the rates to those owners of the remaining 25 per Cent who demanded it. A pioneer scheme covering 5,0o0 acres of the wooded country round Leith Hill in Surrey' was framed more than two years ago, and should have served as an example to the rest of the country ; yet the scheme is understood to be still waiting the approval of the Ministry, with the result that this particular provision of the 1932 Act has not yet been applied anywhere, and the area in question remains still in peril. Tn this case, powers specifically granted appear to have been held up by administrative delay ; in others it may be that powers cannot be applied because of the costs of compensation involved. It seems probable that after the extension of the Tube northward neat year, one of the most beautiful and unspoiled areas within easy distance 'of London, which the London County Council is anxious to add to the Green Belt, may fall as yet another victim to the speculative builder. The damage done to the landscape will be irreparable; the loss to millions of Londoners enormous ; but it seems that these interests, whichs are truly national interests, cannot be protected.
It appears indeed thaL when the preservation of beauty, whether in the country or the town, conflicts with other interests, it has to be sacrificed. Mr. Strauss rightly emphasised that rural and urban beauty are not two things but one, that unless the towns are pleasant to live in, people will flock to the country and there build new suburbias for themselves. Yet it is precisely those who should have most care for the beauty of the towns who appear to be most indifferent. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners arc proposing to demolish Wren's church of All Hallows, Lombard Street. An almost perfect inheritance from the Middle Ages, Merton Street, Oxford, has been temporarily reprieved, but not permanently saved from the passion for destruction. Yet these are, strictly speaking, properties which no one can have the right to demolish, for they belong, in one sense, to the nation itself, as a part of its history and of its common inheritance. In the same sense, the nation has a right of property in its countryside, whose beauty has been the common work of Nature and of men who until now have built upon the land with a delicacy and a sympathy worthy of Nature herself. It has been left for modern times to destroy this work with an impiety which must appal everyone who, in the literal sense, loves his country.
A Government could take up no more profitable task than to protect what is left of this inheritance ; indeed, protection itself is not enough. It is certain that one day the towns and the country of England will have to be rebuilt, and replanned ; and the sooner that day comes the better. In part the work will have to be that of removing the excrescences which have grown up on the face of England ; in part that of re- building and restoring the industrial areas of England, especially the depressed areas, which by now are not only ugly, but decaying, and, with the Government's approval, are being depopulated ; most of all, it will have to be that of drawing up a plan of development for town and country in the future. It is probable that nothing less than this can save England from becoming what Mr. Strauss described as "a universal,- hideous, formless suburbia without the charm of city or country, or any charm at a]l." The powers that at present exist are inadequate ; but such as they are they should be applied with every possible speed, for every day removes some beauty and brings some new horror. Till some plan, not merely of prevention but of cure, is drawn up and applied England will continue to lose, and the jerry-builder to gain.
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