ABSTRACT
The more people think of themselves as masters of the Earth, the more they must be concerned with its prudent stewardship. The earth cover is neatly cut out and messily dumped down. The whole operation is neat from the engineer's angle; the mess it creates in the valley is none of his concern. He has a well-defined purpose, which is to get the coal out by the most efficient means; that these should involve the brutalization of Nature and the spoiling of the environment is to him irrelevant. A mode of existence which confines to cities where people encounter no form of life other than their own may be of bad counsel if they are to adopt a policy of ecological balance. Cost constraints are the great excuse offered by public jerry-builders. As an economist the author see no case for keeping the cost of housing within the inhabitants' present capacity to pay.
