The imagination is stirred by the opportunities which the Colonies possess, and envy is mixed with gratitude that they will have the chance of creating glorious cities warned by the Old Country’s mistakes, and realizing by the progress of economic science that the flow of humanity is ever towards aggregation. The “Back-to-the-land” cry falls on ninety irresponsive ears to ten responsive ones, for the large majority of human beings desire to live in juxtaposition with mankind. It behoves thinkers all the more, therefore, to plan beautiful cities, places to live as well as to work in, and enough of them to prevent a few becoming so large as to absorb more than a healthy share of national life and wealth. But if all of us may think imperially, it is given to most of us only to act locally, and, therefore, I will convey your minds and mine back from the visions of town planning amid the plains of Canada, the fiords and mountains of British Columbia, the high lands and broad velds of Africa, the varied beauties of wood, hill, and sea of Australia and New Zealand, back from the stimulating, almost intoxicating, vision of the work lying before our great Colonies, to the sobering atmosphere of a London or a Manchester suburb, with its miles of mean streets already built, or its open fields and new-made roads, laid out as if under the ruler of the office-boy. Whoever undertakes the area to be laid out, whether it is the municipality or a public land company, should see that the planning is done on a large scale. The injury wrought to towns hitherto has been often due to the narrowness of personal interests and the limitation of the acres dealt with, both of which dim the far sight. The almost unconscious influence of dealing with a wide area is shown in existing schemes, which have been undertaken by owners of large estates, whether the area be planned for an industrial village, such as Mr. Lever’s at Port Sunlight, or for a housing-reform scheme like Mr. Cadbury’s at Bournville; or to accommodate the leisured, as the Duke of Devonshire’s at Eastbourne, or the artistic, as Mr. Comyns Carr’s at Bedford Park; or to create a fresh commercial city, as conceived by Mr. Ebenezer Howard at Letchworth; or to house all classes in attractive surroundings as at the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Whatever be the purpose, the fact of a large area has influenced them all. It has had, as it were, something of the same effect as the opportunity of the Sistine Chapel had on Michael Angelo. The population to be accommodated was large enough to require its own places of worship, public halls, or clubs, its schools, and recreation-grounds. So the lines were drawn with a generous hand, and human needs considered, with a view to their provision within the confines of the estate, instead of being treated as the organ-grinder, and advised to seek satisfaction in the next street--or accommodation on neighbouring land.