can best be proved by giving concrete instances of its application. The examples which follow, in illustration of the Octavia Hill method, are chosen not because they are unique, rather that they are typical, but mainly because they represent achievement of which the writer of this article has intimate knowledge and can speak at first hand. The activities of the Improved Tenements Association deserve attention because its length of experience has made it a worthy model for several recent undertakings of a similar character. It was started under the direct auspices of Octavia Hill and has a record covering twenty-eight years of continuous and successful expansion. The simplicity of its origin has encouraged, and should still further encourage, imitation. In 1899 a few residents in South Kensington, after consulting Miss Hill, subscribed sufficient capital between them to purchase and recondition four dilapidated 'tenement' houses in an area of Notting Dale where housing conditions were at their worst. Octavia Hill managers were of course employed. As the work succeeded according to plan, and was obviously capable of unlimited expansion if funds could be obtained progressively, the enterprise was constituted a public company in 1900, such a thing as a Public Utility Society being then unknown. The extent of the Company's property has grown from that time to this, slowly for many years but far more rapidly since the War, and it now consists of 174 houses, every one of which was to start with a slum in miniature, or nearly so, but now provides decent homes for the same persons, or the same class of persons, that it formerly held. Since the War the rents have of course been increased, but not by the full amount authorised by the Rent Restriction Acts, and they remain in the truest sense rents for the poor. The policy of the Company has been to limit dividends to 4 per cent. (less was paid during the War), and to put any balance to reserve; the Directors are unpaid, and administrative expenses cut down to a minimum, the cost of house-management being a percentage on the rents collected. It will readily be understood that the whole process is simplified by the actual management of the property being in the hands of the Association of Women's House Property Managers, a body which

represents the Octavia Hill tradition and carries on her system.

Here, then, is exemplified a course of action through which slums can be destroyed by the simplest means, by converting the wretched dwellings which compose them into stable and healthy homes. It is indisputable that such a method is only limited by the amount of money which the public may be willing to invest for a modest return. There is scarcely any limit to the bad property (and the worse its state the more suitable it is for the purpose) that can be bought and reconditioned. At any corner of the large district where the work alluded to is in progress one may turn from a row of comfortable houses occupied by middle-class folk into a street, similarly constructed, whose dwellings, shattered by disrepair, are overcrowded with the poor. Roofs leak, paper hangs in strips from damp and verminous walls, sanitary arrangements are at best inadequate and more often dangerously defective. Houses of this sort can be bought at a reasonable figure, but only as a rule after prolonged negotiations. Invariably the owner asks twice their value, but second thoughts and the pressure of circumstances usually bring him to terms. Pressure of circumstances may be especially formidable at the present time, when a Local Authority, if it does its duty, serves notices to enforce repair on the owners of as many such dwellings as it can discover. This does not mean that all bad property is under notice, far from it; for to carry out its whole duty in this matter is as impossible for a Borough Council as the task suggested for the 'seven maids with seven mops.' Moreover, the procedure is useless in the common case of an owner who has no means to comply with the notice, unless the Local Authority is prepared to undertake the work itself, a course of action which it studiously avoids. But the fact that this municipal power exists is a compulsion in itself, and tends to reduce the price of bad property to a just figure.

The importance of buying cheaply needs emphasis and explanation. Although reconditioning is the least costly and speediest way of dealing with slum houses, experience has proved that even 4 per cent. cannot be earned unless the property is well bought. This is

hardly surprising, because thorough reconditioning of these half-ruined houses costs almost as much as their purchase, and annual repairs are an exceptionally heavy expense. If it be urged that the money should be given and not lent, the answer both of reason and experience is conclusive. The problem to be met is one that will outlive the present crisis, when an emotional generosity is easily stirred, and, if the movement is to survive and expand to its full value, it is essential that it should have an economic and not merely a charitable basis. Moreover, at any time, even the present, loan-money is obtainable in much larger amounts than gift-money, and what is wanted is money in quantity, and continuously. A question raised at a recent housing meeting was whether a gift of 100l. were better, or less good, than the loan of 2001. at a low rate of interest, and expert opinion favoured the investment. But in practice 10007., or more, is likely to be lent for every 1007. given. This has at any rate been true until recently and will again be true in the near future.

The work of the Improved Tenements Association has been almost entirely reconditioning, though on occasion houses actually derelict have been reconstructed as flats. But reconditioning, invaluable though it is, does not meet the need for more housing space. To deal with this, various bodies have lately been formed, some of which aim at a combination of reconditioning, reconstruction, and new construction. An interesting example, which has attracted much notice, is the St Pancras House Improvement Society. Two large blocks of exceedingly bad and partially derelict property were purchased with funds subscribed for this venture, and plans have been evolved, which may take some years to complete, by which these will be progressively developed. The scheme is architecturally ingenious, and provides for the retention of certain houses and their addition in a reconstructed form to new buildings. By a system of decanting into new dwellings that replace derelicts, it will be possible to keep all existing tenants with a minimum of disturbance. In passing, it should be noted that to provide for, or to avoid, the temporary displacement of tenants is a difficulty that arises in every housing scheme. When houses are reconditioned, the difficulty is as a rule

surprisingly simplified by the eagerness with which tenants, for the sake of future benefit, will put up with serious temporary discomfort rather than move for the time into any other quarters, even if such can be made available. In the case of wholesale reconstruction, on the other hand, some sort of clearing house has to be provided.

As has already been pointed out, new dwellings, if they are to be let at really low rents, cannot be built for a return on the outlay of more than 2 per cent., and, as low rents are a basic aim of the St Pancras enterprise, the Society has had to raise money at this unattractive rate. It has obtained subscriptions aggregating a large sum chiefly in 2 per cent. loan-stock, but a good deal more will be required to enable it to complete its present programme, while its labours might be extended indefinitely if additional funds should be forthcoming. The work is already at a stage which will well repay a visit of inspection.

Another concern which is now very notably active is the recently formed Kensington Housing Trust. It issues loan-stock both at 4 per cent. and 2 per cent., but appeals particularly for subscriptions to the latter, and as it happens, has raised, through the exceptional generosity of a few individuals, a very considerable sum in free gifts. It has taken on long lease and reconditioned half a street of dilapidated buildings, but its special engagement is the erection of a block of thirtysix flats, of the most up-to-date design, to be let to tenants of the poorest class.

In both the above instances management is on Octavia Hill lines, administration of the properties being in the hands of that ever-growing body, the Association of Women's House Property Managers.

A most important matter with which Octavia Hill management has dealt successfully is overcrowding. It would be hard to exaggerate the extent of this evil, which is mainly confined to the class of property that has been described. Naturally the poor crowd into as few rooms as will hold them, because it is cheaper. But even if a married couple start in ample space, it is a condition unlikely to continue. Children arrive with disconcerting regularity, and until they outlive school

age bring nothing to the purse which supplies their wants. The municipal duty of preventing overcrowding is therefore like cutting off hydra-heads of rapidly recurrent growth. But even to clear overcrowded premises in the first instance is at present usually impracticable, because alternative accommodation is rarely procurable, and the choice before a family packed to demoralising density is as a rule merely between this unhealthy existence under cover and the street. Mr Neville Chamberlain, who as all agree has taken infinite pains in studying every detail of housing conditions, has declared repeatedly that the slum problem turns on management, and has as often unreservedly praised the form of it which has here been so strongly commended. It is simply a fact, surprising even to those most closely connected with Octavia Hill administration, that in the poorest property controlled by this method there is never, when it has had time to function, serious overcrowding. The house-managers are always on the look out for a redistribution which will meet the needs of this family or that, such careful and patient scrutiny, backed by the will to serve, being not only half the battle but the only sure road to victory over this and many other obstacles in the fight against slums.

The task attempted in this article has been to show what the real slum problem is, disengaging it from what is merely temporary in the present housing crisis, and to indicate how best it can be met. The main conclusions drawn may be thus summarised. The problem cannot be met, only indirectly relieved, by subsidy; it will not be touched by commercial enterprise until rent restriction has been abolished and the rents of workingclass property gradually find a level which will restore a lost equilibrium; its difficulties, on the other hand, can be greatly lessened by the rigid enforcement of municipal powers and byelaws, though these, it should be added, require extensive revision and improvement. No one with knowledge of the circumstances can have any doubt as to the extent and grievous nature of the evil to be combatted. Mr Lloyd George recently described a deplorable London area over which he was conducted as a Bolshevik munition factory. For even so extreme and alarming a simile there is some basis. Where conditions