urban district, or by virtue of an order of the Local Government Board subject to this enactment. The provisions of this section and of the two last preceding sections shall not apply to buildings belonging to any railway company and used for the purposes of such railway under any Act of Parliament. Various provisions of the Public Health Acts from 1875 onwards have an important bearing upon housing. For example, under the Act of 1875, it is a nuisance for " any house, or part of a house, to be so overcrowded as to be dangerous or injurious to the health of the inmates, whether or not members of the same family." This nuisance can be abated if necessary by proceedings before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction; and it is the duty of every local authority to cause inspections to be made from time to time to ascertain whether such overcrowding exists. Several municipalities have private Acts, giving them special powers to deal with housing. Clause 111 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, provided that (1) If a municipal corporation determines to convert The Municipal any corporate land into sites for working men's dwellings Corporations Act, and obtains the approval of the Treasury for so doing 1882: Working the corporation may, for that purpose, make grants or Men's Dwellings. leases for terms of nine hundred and ninety-nine years, or any shorter term, of any parts of the corporate land. (2) The corporation may make on the land any roads, drains, walls, fences, or other works requisite for converting the same into building land, at an expense not exceeding such sum as the Treasury approve. (3) The corporation may insert in any grant or lease of any part of the land (in this section referred to as the site) provisions binding the grantee or lessee to build thereon as in the grant or lease prescribed, and to maintain and repair the building, and prohibiting the division of the site or building, and any addition to or alteration of the character of the building, without the consent of the corporation, and for the re-vesting of the site in the corporation, or its re-entry thereon, on breach of any provision in the grant or lease. (4) Every such provision shall be valid in law to all intents, and binding on the parties. (5) All costs and expenses incurred or authorized by a corporation in carrying into execution or otherwise in pursuance of this section, shall be paid out of the borough fund and borough rate, or by money borrowed by the corporation under this Part. (6) In this section the term working men's dwellings means buildings suitable for the habitation of persons employed in manual labour and their families; but the use of part of a building for purposes of retail trade or other purposes, approved by the council, shall not prevent the building from being deemed a dwelling. The Shaftesbury, Torrens and Cross Acts remained the principal legislative authority until 1885, when the Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed as the result of the Royal Commission of 1884. CHAPTER III THE ROYAL COMMISSION, 1884 IN the region of social reform the year 1884 is notable for the appointment of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor, Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor, 1884. which was gazetted on the 4th March. In January of that year the Local Government Board had sent round a circular to the local authorities of London, pointing out their powers and duties under various Acts, as to the inspection of houses, the abatement of nuisances, and the demolition of unsuitable dwellings; but the public was well aware that insanitary conditions in country places were exceedingly bad. Some committees of private people in the richer parts of London had been investigating conditions in such districts as Southwark; so that in every way the Commission came at a time likely to render it fruitful. The problem which presented itself was briefly as follows: The country had been passing through a period of unprecedented prosperity and commercial activity, due to the introduction of machinery and the growth of the factory system. The towns and cities, acting as a gigantic magnet, attracted to themselves hordes of country labourers who were feeling at this time the depression in agriculture. The population of these urban areas grew with such rapidity that the municipalities, untaught by experience and lacking men of ideas and foresight, found themselves unable to cope with this inrush of new life or to create the necessary machinery for dealing with it. No scientific or well-planned effort was made to supply effective housing accommodation, and as a consequence large masses of the working classes, compelled to live near the factory owing to the exigencies of labour, were crowded into unhealthy and insanitary slums; while the worst forms of jerry-building were pardoned or condoned on the ground that the insistent demand for more houses must be satisfied. The housing reformer, then, found himself face to face with a problem rendered complicated and difficult by reason of the constant reaction of other social evils resulting from the same cause; hence a solution of the housing problem would enable us to attack with more confidence the pauperism and crime, the drunkenness, physical degeneration and high death rate of our great cities. The Royal Commission to inquire into the Housing of the Working Classes was appointed under the Great Seal on the 4th day of March, 1884. The members of the Commission were as follows Albert Edward Prince of Wales. Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (Chairman). Sir Richard Assheton Cross. William Walsham (Bishop Suffragan of Bedford). William Torrens McCullagh Torrens. Henry Broadhurst. Jesse Collings. George Godwin. Samuel Morley. Mr. John Edward Courtnay Bodley, M.A., Barrister-at-Law, was Secretary to the Commission. By a further Order in Council, dated 16th August, 1884, Sir George Harrison and Edmund Dyer Gray, were appointed additional Commissioners. Procedure. After ascertaining the powers conferred by existing legislation upon local authorities, the Commissioners proceeded to investigate the condition of the dwellings of the working classes in London, with especial reference to overcrowding. They then selected portions of the metropolis for minute investigation. The neighbourhood chosen was that near the centre of the city, lying south of the Euston Road and north of Holborn and its continuations, comprising the parishes of Clerkenwell and St. Luke and parts of the parish of St. Pancras and of the district of Holborn. This area is inhabited almost exclusively by a poor population, and in order to obtain exhaustive information on the subject of their housing, the Commissioners called as witnesses the local clergy, medical and other officials and members of the vestries, representatives of the interests of the freeholders, School Board officers and officers of the Metropolitan police, all of whom had special knowledge of the district in question. Evidence was also heard as to Bermondsey, Whitechapel, Southwark, Notting Hill, and Marylebone, and incidentally as to Chelsea, Hackney, and Westminster. Abundant testimony was therefore taken as to the condition of things throughout the metropolis, apart from the district specially investigated. The Commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the condition of some of the great provincial towns, and examined witnesses from Bristol and Newcastle-on-Tyne, and, later in the inquiry, from Birmingham, Merthyr-Tydvil, Leeds, and Liverpool. The Commissioners also had laid before them a report, with reference to Gateshead, by a medical inspector of the Local Government Board, which has since been published. The examination of the condition of working-class dwellings in urban centres of population (to which this portion of the present report refers) included the evidence of persons from towns of middle size and from smaller towns. Exeter and Doncaster were taken as examples of the former, and of the latter Camborne and Alnwick were selected as presenting evils of a certain class, while other small towns were incidentally referred to by various witnesses. / The Commissioners also had put in an extract from the Report for 1883 of the medical officer of health for the town of Bridgewater, and in the rural portion of the evidence testimony was given as to the condition of the town of Yeovil. The Commissioners first proceeded to elicit facts as to the metropolis and provincial centres of urban population, and then examined witnesses whose experience qualified them to propose remedies for the evils, the existence of which had been attested. After full inquiry into the facts relating to London and the provincial towns, much evidence as to remedies was given by persons whose experience had been acquired in philanthropic work, in official duty, in local administration, and in the management of model dwellings and of building districts. The Report of the Commissioners appeared (1885) in two large 2-(1752) volumes, and contains almost all the recommendations which housing reformers, then and since, have urged upon Parliament. It is needless here to go into the details of these suggested reforms. as we shall have to discuss them when we come to deal with the question of remedies. Unfortunately, the legislative result was in no way equal to the ability and earnestness of those who worked on this Commission; but much was brought to light, especially in the sympathetic evidence of the Earl of Shaftesbury, which it has been highly advantageous for the country to hear and to discuss. The result of the labours of the Commission is contained in six volumes, viz. Volume I.-Report issued in 1885 relating to England and Wales. Volume II.-Minutes of Evidence and Appendix as to England and Wales. Volume III.-Indexes. Volume IV.-The Second Report, also issued in 1885, dealing with Scotland. Volume The Third Report, in the same year, relating to V.-Minutes of Evidence, Appendix and Index as to Volume VI.-Minutes of Evidence, etc., relating to Ireland. Principal Recommendations. The Commissioners recommended that local authorities should make and enforce by-laws, and also put in force such powers as by law they are entrusted with. The Sanitary Laws for the metropolis were to be consolidated, mortuaries provided, cellar dwellings to be regulated, by-laws respecting buildings to be framed. Metropolitan sanitary authorities were advised to increase their staff of sanitary inspectors; medical officers of health should devote their whole. time to their duties. Reforms were to be effected in the local administration of London, irrespective of which the question of the border line of action between the Metropolitan Board of Works and other London authorities should receive attention, with a provision for the contribution towards costs of contiguous parishes. Recommendations were made with a view to strengthening the Cross |