This is confirmed by the views expressed in the Statist of the 14th September, 1918.

All through the nineteenth century various Acts of Parliament were passed dealing with the question, and benevolent individuals assisted in the erection of what are known as modern dwellings. Instead of being occupied by the very indigent, a comparatively opulent section of the wage-earning classes applied for, and secured, the tenements, with the result that the really indigent had to be contented with even less accommodation than formerly.

. . It was at first hoped that regulation by Act of Parliament of builders and others, would solve the problem of enforcing certain conditions conducive to health. Experience, on the other hand, has shown that regulation only aggravated the difficulty it was sought to alleviate. Either the new houses built under the more favourable conditions imposed by Act of Parliament were let to an economically superior class of tenants than those for whom they were intended, or, where the builder did not see any prospect of thus disposing of them, he declined to build this class of property at all. Consequently the shortage of houses has steadily increased. It would appear, from the figures of the Census and the report we have just quoted, that about 10 per cent. of our working population are not in a position to pay what is termed an economic rent." It seems evident that if they are to be housed under conditions that will give them any prospect of enjoying sound health, dwellings suitable for their occupation must be erected, not as an economic proposition, but at the expense of the rest of the community.

SECTION VII

IS THERE A SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM?1

"We must stop at no sacrifice of interest or prejudice to stamp out unmerited poverty, to diminish unemployment and mitigate its sufferings, to improve decent homes, to improve the nation's health, and to raise the standard of well-being throughout the community."-Extract from the King's Speech from the Throne to the Houses of Parliament, 11th February, 1919.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WHAT IS A SUITABLE HOUSING POLICY?

It is universally recognized that the economic provision of housing is inadequate to meet the present demands. Proofs of the shortage have been forthcoming in the preceding pages. The demand has outrun the supply; consequently prices have risen to an excessive extent. This shortage was apparent before the war, but is now acute.

A Policy of Housing.

There are still many people who think houses should never be built, except for the poorest, unless they could prove an economic proposition. We must, however, regard this emergency housing in the same light as the policy of slum clearance which, as has been shown, was embarked upon by many local authorities before the war. If we were to start upon a definite economic basis we should put off housing reform at least a decade and postpone still further the clearance of insanitary areas.

What may be considered, therefore, to be a suitable policy for the solution of the problem?

In the first place, the whole question of the housing of the,. poorest must be considered as a health proposition.

The slum has become a pressing question of public health and its continuance reacts upon the whole community. The policy of destruction necessarily entailed in the removal of the slums was

1 The following pages were written in the autumn of 1918, and include memoranda based upon certain of the recommendations contained in the Reports of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Industrial Classes in Scotland, 1917. It will be noted that some of the proposals are incorporated in the legislation of 1919. The Section is printed as written in order to show the trend of public opinion at the time.

less attractive, more costly, and more complicated than a constructive policy. Attention was usually focussed upon providing new houses, and those situated upon the outskirts where the problem was not complicated by land having already been developed. Obviously, such a scheme, which centred upon building houses on open land, would not suffice to deal with existing evils.

It was recognized, however, that the most economic method of getting rid of slum areas was not by converting them into residential quarters but through commercial and industrial growth of a town rendering the clearance of slums a necessity.

Thus there would be two distinct lines of progress—the demolition within the insanitary area, and the construction of houses for the dispossessed in the outer suburbs on vacant land. The latter development must be supported by improvement in transit. For those who must be re-housed within the areas provision must be made by the adaptation and improvement of existing premises.

The present tendency, however, is towards decentralization of industry. Any proposal for solving the problem ought now to take into account the redistribution of industry and population which may follow on the development of electric power by superpower stations (as recommended in the report of the committee appointed by the Board of Trade to consider the question of Electric Power Supply,1 and new forms of transport with the corresponding effect upon site values and rents as the area of population increases. Such a tendency has already been shown in the creation of Port Sunlight, Bournville, Earswick, and the Garden City movement as illustrated by Letchworth and Hampstead.

With regard to the re-housing of the actual people dispossessed, there are always to be found people anxious to avoid responsibility in this connection. If, on the clearance of a slum, the Local Government Board under their Provisional Order require 50 per cent. of the inhabitants of the slum to be re-housed, but fail to put it in that way, merely requiring so many people to be housed, it is stated that there is no responsibility to the people dispossessed. So many houses are built and as a rule are occupied by any but the dispossessed.

The local authority should, therefore, be made to re-house

1 Cd. 9062-1918.

1

the actual people dispossessed. A register of these should be kept, showing age, whether married or single, wages, etc., etc., and the new houses should be reserved, as long as possible, for these people who, by notice sent specially to them, should be invited to take one of the new houses.

All this is done in Liverpool. Notwithstanding these efforts a proportion ranging from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. of the dispossessed may not come into the new houses. About half of these (i.e., from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. of the whole) will take a better house, and for these it is imperative that simultaneously, or better still before clearance, houses should be built on the outskirts, and even if they are not occupied by dispossessed the "levelling up" principle will apply with satisfactory results if the following programme is carried out.

For the remaining dispossessed-those who will neither go into the houses replacing insanitary ones nor into those on the outskirts— lodging houses of three types (a) for men, (b) for women, and (c) for families should also be erected by the local authority, and if in the meantime the by-laws controlling the subdivision of houses and the sub-letting of houses have been raised to the standard suggested in these pages,1 much will have been done to prevent the creation of further slums, and, in any case, the old conditions can never return. One of the most serious troubles in a great city as regards clearances of insanitary property is the presence of the public-house.

Public-Houses.

In one small clearance in Liverpool there was one public-house, and, to avoid building round it, it was included for demolition by purchase. Its purchase added £1 per square yard to the cost of the area of the whole clearance. In another big scheme five public-houses were brought up. It may be suggested that wherever the local authority includes in a scheme of slum clearance one or more public-houses they should be regarded as redundant and should be bought out by the compensation fund, which, if necessary, should be levied in order to pay them off and close them.

An attempt already made to get this incorporated in a Housing Bill, met with difficulties so great that those interested were compelled to drop it, but some such measure should certainly be adopted and put on the Statute Book.

1 See page 235.