dlords of London, while leaving the bulk of the population engaged in
a hard struggle for their existence, that he had for years past found it
difficult to take much interest in municipal affairs, so long as the
rates and taxes were--as it seemed to him--put upon the wrong shoulders.
And for the study of civics, he had preferred to turn to those cities
where efforts were being made to establish communal life on what seemed
to him juster conditions. In 1897, he was struck with the title of an
article in the "Daily Telegraph." It was headed, "The Land of Beauty,
Society without Poverty, Life without Care." He found the article was a
description of Durban in Natal. The writer attributed the prosperity of
this town to the fact that the suburbs were kept in the hands of the
community, instead of being handed over to private owners who would
absorb all the unearned increment. Even if this eulogium betrayed
exaggeration still a student of civics might feel that the economic
conditions of that town were worth studying. Similarly, in New Zealand,
the adoption in 1891 of the tax on land values brought prosperity to the
towns, and changed the tide of emigration from New Zealand into
immigration. Again, at home they had Bourneville, Port Sunlight, and
that most interesting of all present-day experiments in this country,
the Garden City, all of these being founded by men with ideals. He could
not help feeling [Page: 117] that a student of civics, possessed of such
a fair working knowledge of the city he lived in as most of them might
reasonably lay claim to, would make more real progress by studying the
success or failure of social experiments, than by entering on the very
formidable task that seemed to be set before them by Professor Geddes.
However, when they left abstract civics, as they had it portrayed to
them in these papers, and turned to the architectural or the historical
side of concrete civics, there should be no better guide than Professor
Geddes, whose labours in Edinburgh, and whose projected schemes for the
improvement of Dunfermline, were becoming widely known.

MR. TOMKINS (_of the London Trades Council_) said:

If before any person was allowed to serve on our different public
bodies, he should be required to attend a course of lectures such as
those given by Professor Geddes on civics, that would surely be a means
of developing his social interests, and would tend to eliminate that
self-interest which too often a