Britain's New Social Experiment
M
A
Communit that the
idea which it ex
the Western Hemisphere.
numerous
and the
ealise of these new
contained immen
feature ment. So
that the tre was opened
and perhaps the municipalities which have built by the then Prince them have deliberately provided immediately proved houses suitable only for manual less boon to the ne workers earning relatively low much so that its accom wages. But five years strenuous been overtaxed from the effort brought its fruitage in the an extension is now being
In the United States and there have been, within the
scattered a VERIS, tempts to create focal points round which the affairs of the district might naturally group themselves. It might be the little red school
By Eyre Sandford Carter
that here wa
glance at
the
have been only because on for the
in the thos ng part in them have a definite responsibility for their or- ganisation and management The comm mity
Miss much
re, but far more because
house at the crossroads, or a field shape of a bank balance of about house in a Chicago park, or a £500, and this resolute example of events carried on
mater than a building it is the home of building specially planned to serve self-help was rewarded by substan- Centre ahows the vari
the social and cultural life of the the social needs of residents in a tial assistance from the Pilgrim ests for which it caters.
Trust, a body formed to administer lovers group takes 2- once a district. It is theirs because they sumall town.
ses in control it For is purpose they Sometimes the centre has repre- a large sum of money given by an month, to be followed by
have formed themselves into a omen' sented a conscious effort to pre American citizen, r E Hark French and German. The
Neighbourhood Guild has weekly community association, which is a serve a little of the racial culture дess, toward the social of a section of the European-born ment of Great Britain. The trustees, meetings at which every subject federation of all the groups whose population. In England, the racial one of whom was then Prime under the sun seems to be discuss pursuits comprise the programme de
•question does not arise so obvious Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, saw ed-Chinese art, "What shall my scribed. The federation is solely a totally new and child do when he leaves school responsible for the use and upkeep ly, though even now there is talk
of the centre, through an executive of a community centre in London
officer, the secretary the associa to draw together the thousands of
Ition. Welsh ex-coalminers who have escaped the rigors of prolonged un- employment by migrating to other occupations in the metropolis Se- we may yet hear, in some unexpect ed comer of Cockneyland,” the strains of Ar Hyd y Nos, or Ton-y- Botel, reminding us that the Welsh- folk are great at community sing- ing.
THE
WORLD GOES BY
By "ULYSSES"
In this last point there is an illus- tration of the happy partnership which has sprung up between such voluntary institutions as com munity associations and the
eg-
TOTHING doing to day. I don't fluence of Ulysses was now indis-tablished machinery of local govern-
No mind cleaning the windows" pensable to the promotion, of local ment. The education, committee of
and polishing up the locker of righte Legs. the big front door but I am not
The Clubs
the County Council, as soon as they became aware of the benefits which the community centre was confer ring on the neighbourhood, realised that this was just as legitimate a charge on civic finds as the cost of running a public school, and they [made a grant of three quarters of
going to write this colum any In The welcome improvement in the more It bores me. It bores every-r economic situation is producing body.. I am therefore going to be another type of community centre, fashionable and come out on strike, also. In the depth of the depres-On second thoughts, sit-down sion there sprang up, all over the strike, as being far less energetic. the various clubs, although the the secretary's salary, the remain- country, numbers of clubs in which
unemployed men found occupation
Something like consterna manifested in the reading rooms of
secretary of one such institution der being given from another well- admitted that so far as he was con- known benevolent trust, that found- cerned he was glad of it, as he was ed by Andrew Carneg tired of seeing the members fight-
Mail" each evening. fing for possession of the "China
for their enforced leisure, and Reporters fellowship, too. With the return Get Busy
who of prosperity, many of the men- are now in work again are pur-
In connection with the declara suing, in the evenings, the hobbies tion of a strike by Ulysses, a reporter which they originally took up as
29.3 of the "China Mail has interviewed means of filling the long empty various prominent citizens to ascer- hours of involuntary idleness; not tain their views and opinions as to The Line- only so, but they are bringing their the probable effects of the occur wives and families also to
Up
The force of these examples has uthorities. not been lost an sei Sheffield municipality in 193 Birmingham, Leeds, and Smethwick in 1936, have each made a beginning rence. As was expected, these At all the railway stations on the with one community halla begin- clubs, which are thus becoming views and opinions were very vari-zailway line to Canton, passengersang only since Birmingham, for centres for the whole community. ous.
the
Chiefly, however, community cen-
connection with the new housing Relieved
tres have come into prominence in
areas which have sprung up on the outskirts of London and other
One taipan, on being informed, Government
were putting anxious faces out and instance, has more than a dozen asking the stationmasters along the large housing estates, every one of route if the news was true.
which needs a centre of its own. The last few months, however, have seen a great awa
Fand B planning be
core of
mmmunity
barge cities in Britain as a result merely said: "For this relief much To Intervene? of the slum clearance campaign. thanks” Several local financiers
These new estates, as they are call-expressed themselves similarly. A The consensus of public opinion ed, are, in fact, small towns con= high Government official, approach is that Government” taining from 5,000 to 50,000 in-led by the same reporter, asked vene in the inte habitants, but they differ from “What or who is Ulysses? On be- jas such a deprivation other towns in that they are ting informed, he
ked that he ticular time of inte created artificially, built in a few had nothing to say.
weeks or months, and are imme-
diately filled by people who are At The University strangers to one another. Hence
might have the
ter-
par the community
for it presented bill to
physic
arliament
training on by ity een-
sults upon the public health and well-being
the residents on one of these The big-shots at the University The Markets estates, having lost in a night, as were frankly dismayed, and said
were, all their old ties with the that if the strike continued for any The exchange mark churches,
cinemas, shops, and ever length of time the cause of educa-lapsed, the dollar being quoted
the neighbourhoods tion in the Colony mig De irre-
they have left, feel the urge to parably injured. They explained House
create for themselves a new set of that a course in Ulysses had become friends, a new neighbourhood con-an essential preliminary to success-
sciousness, a new community
Impelled partly by this. partly perhaps, by reaction
ful matriculation. Several school- masters offered similar opinions
gainst what any feel to t the Effect
et me
and
beginning to On Morals.
their own forms
here round
The Latest
~2,000,000, will
nd vo. ch put up
Ten
well known
residents on the
her said he was
for a buildi work,
ebb, lally
it and he hoped it true. He said it was
cognised that the moral
tide was
sses will appear
ally
and
members on of an