also a factor in lengthening the delay. But the original cause of delay was the selection of a site.

This was a matter on which the other States had open minds, but representatives from New South Wales contested with much vigor the rival claims of sites within their own constituencies. In 1903 a Seat of Government Bill was introduced in the House of Representatives, with the locality of the site left blank so as to allow Parliament to decide by a majority on the locality, but the final choice of Canberra was not made until 1908.

The American Constitution provided that the seat of Government should not exceed ten miles square, the equivaent of 100 square miles. The Australian Constitution, when amended to provide that the seat of Government should be in New South Wales, provided that the Federal territory should be not less than 100 square miles. The Act passed by Parliament fixing the site at Yass-Canberra provided that the area of the Federal territory should be not less than 900 square miles, and should have access to the sea, the object of extending the territory being mainly to give the Commonwealth control over the catchment areas of the small rivers which flow through the YassCanberra site. It was also provided that all the land within these 900 square miles which belonged to the Crown- that is, the unalienated land which belonged to the Government of New South Wales - should be transferred by that Government to the Commonwealth Government without payment. In order to avoid having to pay an extravagant price for the purchase of private lands within the selected territory, it was fixed by statute that the price paid by the Commonwealth Government to private owners must not exceed the value of the land on the date that the Act was passed. The

highest price thus paid as compensation to private landowners within the Federal territory for the resumption of land has been $15 an acre. For some of this land within the city site, which has been leased by the Federal Capital Commission to private persons for building purposes, rents aggregating $4000 an acre per annum are being received by the Commission. It will be seen that the building of the capital promises to be a very profitable enterprise for the Commission as trustees of the nation.

Public life in Australia is remarkably free from graft, and there has been no suggestion of graft at any stage in connection with the site and the building of the city.

Access from Canberra to the sea has been provided by the Government of New South Wales granting the Commonwealth Government the right to construct a railway to Jervis Bay, 120 miles away. An area of two square miles at Jervis Bay has also been granted by New South Wales to the Commonwealth for the purpose of providing port facilities.

Canberra is 204 miles from Sydney

more than twice the distance required by the Constitution. It is 429 miles from Melbourne; 912 from Adelaide, the capital of the State of South Australia; 929 from Brisbane, the capital of Queensland; and over 2500 miles from Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

The building of Canberra on a virgin site has increased enormously the value of the land, but the Commonwealth Government reaps all the benefit. The greater part of the Federal territory of 900 square miles was Crown land, transferred to the Commonwealth free of charge. The Government has spent about $3,750,000 in acquiring land from private owners, who had used it mainly for

grazing sheep. The Capital Commission has held several auction sales of business and residential sites within the twelve square miles reserved. The prices realized reveal what a big asset the Commission possesses, and what a big annual revenue will ultimately be obtained. Some of the business blocks in the centre of the city-which for the most part is still unbuilt - realized at auction $400 per foot frontage. The bidding for some of the best corner blocks, consisting of one sixth of an acre, reached $18,000. This represents the unimproved value of the land, and the bidder pays the Commission an annual rent of 5 per cent of his bid. Eventually the Commission will have an annual income of millions of dollars from the rents of business and residential blocks in the new city. This income will wipe out the cost of construction, including the cost of many large public buildings, and will eventually provide a surplus that will be paid into the national treasury.

Steps have been taken to prevent land speculators from making money out of the Federal Capital. The fact that not a foot of land can be sold outright by the Commission eliminates the speculator to a considerable extent, but it is also desired to eliminate the speculator in leases. There is a provision in every lease that building operations must be begun within twelve months of the purchase of the lease, and completed within another twelve months. No lease can be sold by the original purchaser until the building conditions have been fulfilled. But so rapid has been the increase in land values that some original purchasers of leases have been able to sell out at considerable profit.

The remainder of the Federal territory outside the city area with the exception of 150 square miles reserved

as a belt of open country round the city, and 170 square miles forming the catchment area of the chief river providing the city water supply - is being leased as farms and grazing areas.

In appointing a commission of three members to control the construction and development of Canberra, the Commonwealth Government followed the example of the United States in connection with Washington. But the Canberra commissioners hope to profit by some of the mistakes made at the American capital, which was laid out before the garden-city idea was born. The leasehold system with regard to land at Canberra gives the nation, instead of the individual, the unearned increment arising from increased values of land. Moreover, the fact that the Commission controls the whole of the land means that it controls the development of the city according to plan. Washington has not developed according to the design on which it was laid out, but has spread in a northwesterly direction, with the result that the Capitol, instead of being the centre of the city, is on the southeastern outskirts. But the Canberra Commission can prevent development in any one direction at the expense of the general plan of the city. It throws open only a limited number of blocks of land at a time, and therefore it can carry on development in all quarters of the compass successively. The building provisions in the leases will also be a factor in the development of the city according to plan. Blocks of land cannot remain vacant while leaseholders wait for a rise in values; nor can huge unsightly buildings of many stories be erected in the business quarter. It is doubtful if Canberra will ever become an important industrial city, but the design provides for an industrial area, separated from the business, governmental, and residential districts.

What form of municipal government shall be instituted will be left for the Commonwealth Parliament to decide. To deprive residents of the right to elect a municipal body to govern the affairs of the city would be opposed to the democratic sentiment of Australians, but on the other hand it will be necessary for the Capital Commission to retain extensive powers in connection with the construction, development, and government of the city. Residents of Canberra - like those of Washington - will have no Parliamentary vote. The Commonwealth Parliament would be willing to give them the vote, but for a great many years the city will be too small in population to justify its being given the right to elect a member of the House of Representatives; and, being Federal territory, it cannot be amalgamated for electoral purposes with any of the adjoining Federal constituencies of the State of New South Wales. All over the world the people interested in town planning and gardencity ideals are looking to Australia. Canberra has advantages that no other garden city in the world possesses. The site has been selected because of the advantages it offers for such building; there are no private property rights to be considered; there is a great deal of public money available. Although the garden-city movement, which owes its origin to Mr. Ebenezer Howard's book, Garden Cities of Tomorrow, first published in 1898 under the title, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform, has spread to all civilized countries, there are very few garden cities in the world. There are some hundreds of garden suburbs and small areas laid out on town-planning lines. New York has a 'Garden City,' which, however, has no claims to be regarded as a city; London has a garden suburb at Golders Green, and

twenty miles away at Welwyn a small garden city is being built as the first of a series of satellite towns which will be ringed round London. There are small communities living under model housing conditions at a score of places in England, of which Port Sunlight and Bourneville are the best known, and there are somewhat similar model housing areas in other European countries. But the world's only example of a complete garden city is Letchworth in England, where in 1904 six square miles of land in an agricultural district were purchased by the First Garden City Limited to enable Mr. Ebenezer Howard to give practical expression to his plans. Letchworth is planned to carry a population of 35,000 on an area of two square miles, the remainder of the land forming an agricultural belt round the city. There are now about forty factories in Letchworth, operating in a specially planned industrial area, and the population numbers 12,000. The streets are wide, and are lined with gardens and trees. The workers have good homes with plenty of air and sunlight, and each house has a small garden.

But Canberra is being laid out on a much larger and more elaborate scale. Far more money will be expended in making it a model city than any private company can afford in making Letchworth beautiful. Already more than $10,000,000 has been expended, though little more than a beginning has been made. The public buildings to be erected will rival the magnificent public buildings at Washington. As the Federal Capital of a country which is almost as large as Europe, Canberra has a great future before it; as a State-owned city, it is a unique experiment in civic government; as a garden city, it is destined to prove an inspiring example to town planners in all parts of the world.

MAÑANA

ESPECIALLY since a corrupt Spanish bureaucracy was deprived of power in Cuba, and the government bestowed upon corrupt Cubans, it has become a dogma the world over that Spain is a decadent nation.

I came to Spain expecting to find anæmic yellow faces, the sapped vitality of degenerates; when not sunk into a coma from indigence or secret vice, I looked to find the people cribbed and confined by a medieval religion; pale children in gutters I looked for, and few of them. I was wrong. By and large, they are the healthiest-looking animals in Europe. Not those in the industrial cities, but those in rural Spain - which is infinitely the largest part, and will remain so. The Spanish land, the Spanish mountains, and above all the Spanish character forbid an invasion of anything more industrial than a Ford.

If, then, the Spaniard has devoted himself neither to building factories in which to burn soft coal, as we have done, nor to conquering backward nations, like the British, what has he done with his biceps and brain?

Most Americans will be unable to survive a visit to Spain, but those who do will be better men. By visit I do not mean Cadiz or Madrid, train de luxe, Seville, Cordova, Granada, Burgos, cathedrals, the Prado, monasteries, a bullfight, and home in time for the hunting. That has its uses, but it can be done without leaving America that is, leaving it linguistically, gastronomically, socially, or mentally. The sort of thing I mean is a sojourn in

Spain, be it long or short, where trippers are not.

One or two simple principles are absolutely necessary to American survival. The first is: Be courteous on all the occasions when you would be courteous at home, and likewise on all those when you would n't. If you are, the Spanish will outdo you exactly twofold in every courteous word and act; if you are n't, and become, say, brusque, they will either put you in jail or leave you on top of a mountain without anything to eat. The second principle is: Whenever you are in a hurry, do nothing about it. This is more important than the first. It will secure for you most of the good things in Spain.

Of course I had read of these laws of Spanish character in books, on the Soul of Spain, the Heart of the Iberian, and all the rest, but never ground them by circumstance and calamity into my bones, and my diary.

Here is the working of the first. My friend and I entered Spain on foot on a discouraging day of mist, over the pass that had been used by Hannibal, Cæsar, Abd-er-Rahman, and Napoleon. For a week the clouds had been a swaying bank of moisture over the French side of the peaks. Just at the frontier, the watershed of the Pyrenean wall, they broke, and gave us Spain.

It was partly the sunlight of Spain that melted them. We looked down upon baked, castellated barricades running fifty miles into the plain. Real or natural castillos grew out of their tops, and the flanks of the mountains were dyed many colors: red and orange, for example; blue and green. Between,

the Spanish valleys lay lush with vineyards and grain, or arid with rock and sand. The country seemed poised a rude balance between desert sand and Eden.

At first historically infected with memories of Rahman and Hannibal, and then smitten with the scarring, boiling beauty of the landscape, we stepped on, in a happy hypnosis, till we met three soldiers. Then came a wave of concern for our defective passports. We had been moving over the frontier, before, through remote and unguarded mountains where no customs officer had ever trekked. The carabineros wore the green musical-comedy costume of the Spanish soldier, with fireman helmets turned up and flattened in back. They assumed attitudes and manners of immense dignity- the Spaniard has tons of it in reserve and studied our papers with black brows. The senior official fingered the passports; the others fingered their guns; we fingered nervously the newly changed pesetas in our breeches' pockets.

Suddenly the situation changed: the tail of a Spanish eye had caught sight of our kodak; we offered with courtesy to take their picture. Passports were folded up, uniforms brushed, and faces screwed into expressions of military rigor. We snapped the three soldiers; we shook hands, we exchanged addresses, we conversed in bad French, we saluted we entered Spain. Principle No. 2. We entered Canfranc, a tiny frontier village which the guidebook had told us to avoid. It had the immemorial look of all Spanish towns-baked, built of stone and slate, and resembling the landscape. But there were no monuments historiques there; it was just a village where we went to wait for the Jaca bus.

--

The bus was due at four o'clock. It was the mail bus into Spain. By 4.30 it

was n't in sight on the road from the Somport pass into France. But sometime about 5.30 five thousand sheep arrived instead. The children of Canfranc ran among them, pinched their tails, and made them hurdle each other in fright.

At 5.45 the mail bus squeezed its way along Main Street, and we climbed on the roof of it. Then, about six, the tiny town awoke into a rich, varied, and amazing life. The passeo began! The mayor, aristocracy, the thirty tradesmen with their wives, the peasants, and incredible numbers of children appeared mysteriously on balconies and in the street. We hoped the bus would n't start. It did n't.

The people passed each other, slowly, with that amazing dignity of the Spanish, talking with animation, gazing with consummate curiosity at everyone else - as though they had n't seen them at yesterday's passeo. There were the young bloods, with Englishcut clothes and faces like American sophomores. Also, stuffing the balconies and the windows, one-hundredper-cent Spanish señoritas, carrying on, in the authentic manner of romance, a commerce of chaff and looks with the lads below. Farmers passed on donkeys, and hay loads fell from mules' backs to the side of the road. A man appeared with five musical instruments, which he distributed to tiny boys and girls who screamed with delight as they took them. He kept the cornet himself. They followed him, dancing and leaping over the cobblestones, down the narrow street where the sheep had gone.

The show went on for an hour; nothing whatever happening - in an American sense. Nobody playing baseball, or pitching quoits, or going to see Harold Lloyd. Just explosion after explosion of animal spirits, and the gayest curiosity about the lives and loves of