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with no guiding principles for its future development. According to the borough surveyor, the chief tendency has been to build on existing main and other road frontages a type of house which, in the case of the principal entries to the town, certainly appears to have robbed the town of what should have been high rateproducing frontage properties. The results are deplorable buildings; but cheap land and cheap houses are, for the present, the chief consideration. To-day a Town Planning Committee is at work, and is giving consideration to the question of how to control the architectural features of the town. Probably, in due course, the Ministry of Health will be asked to allow the town powers to preserve itself. Thus four years after the publication of a comprehensive report, the local council still find it difficult to complete even the outline of their scheme, which has to proceed through a number of stages before it has statutory power. This is not for the lack of goodwill or enthusiasm, but because of the endless difficulties met with in the preservation of even such an historic town the Mecca of the literary world-in rivalry with the modern commercial builder.

The Midland Joint Town Planning Advisory Council is also at work in this district, and is drawing up detailed schemes, which are only in their early stages. Our progress in these matters is very slow as compared with the Ruhr district of Germany, where a strong man has been put in charge. He decides whether new buildings shall be built, how they are to be built, and frequently who shall build them. Nuremberg, too, is a wonderfully wellpreserved city with its old character well maintained, for power has been given to a committee to allow or disallow any alterations to existing buildings. But, at Stratford-on-Avon, serious damage has been done in the last few years to the town's beauty, and the amenities of the surrounding countryside are being daily menaced by the speculative bungalow builder.

Around Stratford the evil of indiscriminate building along our roadsides is conspicuous. "Ribbon development is the new phrase to describe this increasing habit of building houses along roads in a haphazard fashion rather than concentrating estates in regulated areas. Especially in the districts around London and other industrial centres, much of the beauty of our country roads is being spoilt owing to uncontrolled building. But how this evil can be prevented is a difficult and delicate question to answer.

The large estate developers are certainly not to blame, and the more far-sighted take strongly the view that their clients should refrain from buying roadside strips, as they consider that development must advance along carefully thought-out lines. Messrs. Harrods, for example, in a recent statement published in the Estates Gazette, wrote: "No prudent purchaser, certainly no client of ours, would be advised to embark on building in isolated spots, which have the disadvantage, residentially, of being absolutely face to face with all the dust and noise and other annoyances of main road motoring." As expert land practitioners, they conclude that: "The question of ribbon development' is more a counter for town planners to play with in theory than a practical problem of the country-side.”

This is not quite correct. The tendency for small house development to run out along the main roads should not be minimised. It is partly due to the fact that sites at some distance from the towns can often be bought cheaply and there are low charges for such public services as gas, water, and electric light ; while, sometimes, even the main sewer runs along the road. Borough bye-laws in most cases cannot control such development, for the houses are built outside the borough boundary, and the sites cannot be protected by local town-planning schemes. In view of the shortage of houses and the present almost prohibitive cost of providing gas, water, and drainage services, it is hardly surprising that many individuals build on the roadside; and, whilst the shortage lasts, it will not be easy to prevent isolated persons ruining the approaches to our towns by indiscriminate building.

Do not let us imagine, however, that the policy of planning is merely a negative one of protecting existing beauties. Planning and zoning, as is realised far more in the United States than in this country, are matters of practical politics. Their primary concern is to meet modern needs and anticipate future developments in every possible way. In New York, Chicago, and other American cities, the main impetus for planning has been given by members of the business community, who recognise far more clearly than the captains of industry in this country, that illregulated development is wasteful; that traffic congestion represents money being lost every minute that it is allowed to continue; that land, when built over in a sprawling fashion, is capital thrown

away; and that, in short, it pays to provide, as far as is humanly possible, for developments which may come in the next hundred years.

But all the bodies that have so far been set up, including Regional and Town Planning Committees, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and its 22 constituent societies, all depend ultimately upon the electorate, and can only act effectively when they carry the public with them; further, we must not imagine that committees alone, however numerous they may be, or however distinguished their membership, will carry through to fruition complex development schemes, and we must not underestimate the difficulties, or expect that the varied problems will be quickly solved. For that very reason, all who value what Caliban showed Prospero—“ All the qualities o' th' isle "—will do well to support in their own local niche of England this movement for sane planning and constructive action.

B. S. TOWNROE.

ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS

1. Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission of the Church Assembly. C.A. 200. S.P.C.K. 1926.

2. Report of the Proceedings of the Church Assembly. Vol. VII. S.P.C.K. 1926.

No. 2.

3. Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts. Stationery Office. C.3760 of 1883.

H.M.

4. Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline. Stationery Office. Cd. 3040 of 1906.

H.M.

5. Churches in the Modern State.

By J. N. FIGGIS.

Longmans.

1913.

6. General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland v. Overtoun. Law Reports. Appeal Cases.

7. O'Callagan v. O'Sullivan.

THE

1904.

Irish Law Reports. 1925.

HE institutions of European civilization, including our own, are largely due to the working of ecclesiastical courts; and it is unlikely that the men who have devoted so much of their time to the service of the various commissions dealing with the subject would have been willing to do so unless the matter had been one of urgent practical importance. The free and wellordered life of the Church of England is of great importance to the nation, and it is also of importance that the relation of the civil courts to the ecclesiastical courts of various denominations should be clearly defined. A solution of the many problems that arise is now offered in the unanimous report of the widely representative Commission presided over by the Archbishop of York. That report has been cordially received by the Church Assembly, and is now before the Church and the country. The task of this Commission was heavy enough, but it was greatly lightened by the labours of the two Royal Commissions which had reported in 1883 and in 1906, so that the three reports form, in a sense, a continuous whole. Each of the Commissions sat for between two and three years.

The Commission, whose report we are here considering, finally consisted of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham, St. Albans, Truro and Worcester; Lord Phillimore, Sir Lewis Dibdin, Mr. Justice Sankey, Sir W. Buchanan-Riddell, Sir P. Baker-Wilbraham; Canons F. G. Ackerley, E. N. Sharpe,

Darwell Stone and H. A. Wilson; Mr. F. H. L. Errington, Mr. P. N. Sutherland Graeme and Dr. Ernest Barker. The first question with which it was confronted was whether the historical and statistical work of the previous Commissions required revision. This was decided to be unnecessary, partly in view of the comparative recency and complete thoroughness with which the work had been done, but chiefly in view of the practical nature of the desired end, namely, the life and stability of the Church.

Modern science has changed our conception of stability, and to-day stability is better illustrated by a ship standing on its course than by a pyramid standing upon its base. The effect of this change of view is very far-reaching and stimulating, and though it does not encourage extravagances, and warns us against pursuing a course where history has charted the existence of rocks, it does (to follow out the figure) give free movement to the ship under its appropriate motive power. It is not suggested that the matter was thus presented to the minds of the Commission, but the analogy consorts with the objective which the Archbishop of York defined as the combination of freedom with order. This is a practical objective. An ecclesiastical court is a court of justice; and, apart from the demands made by the special nature of the matters with which it deals, it should be equipped for the discharge of the duties which belong to every judicial tribunal. These duties are two-fold in their nature, namely, to enunciate law and to ascertain facts. It may happen that in some particular case, one or other of these duties is not conspicuous. Thus in a case of immorality the essential dispute may be as to the facts, and in a ritual case as to the law. But in every judicial decision whatsoever, the facts, unless they are formally admitted, must be proved, and the law, at least implicitly, must be enunciated. It is important to bear this in mind, for some (though not many) of the clergy, remembering the prowess in legal technique displayed by their medieval brethren, are inclined to think that ecclesiastical causes should be tried by the clergy, and seem to overlook the fact that special training and constant experience are essential to the efficient conduct of litigation. Thus the English law of evidence embodies a large number of considerations which are not only traditional with us, but consonant with English ideas of justice; but in the hands of anyone who is not familiar with

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