rural workers, and the maladies incidental to rural occupations will be more effectually dealt with.

The Brightening of Country Life.

With little effort nowadays, compared with former times, the dullness of country life can be modified. The increased facilities for transport which enabled the people to move from the country, can, judiciously used, be the means of bringing them back, and of transforming country life. Motor traffic and bicycles have brought country and town into much closer relationship. Educational advantages hitherto associated with town life are thus placed within reach of country dwellers; lectures can be arranged and attended, dramatic and musical entertainments provided, and country centres be constantly stimulated from the cities. Increased business co-operation is likely to lead, especially among an educated people, to more social co-operation, particularly if the needs of the country are studied with more sympathetic interest by the class of people who have devoted most of their social effort to the needs of the town. This is especially true with regard to the young people. A hopeful sign is the revival of ancient village sports, dances, and peasant drama and pageantry.

In this connection may be mentioned the project of Garden Cities, the aim of which is to brighten the lives of persons engaged in industrial pursuits by surrounding their work with conditions which combine the advantages of the country with those of the city. It is possible that this project may play an important part in the re-peopling of the rural districts. In 1902, Mr. Rider Haggard disparaged the idea of any serious contribution from this source towards a solution; in 1906 he was convinced of its possibilities. A few years ago the flourishing Garden City of Letchworth was bare grass land; there are now, as has been shown, 1 factories established there and it is growing rapidly, whilst at the same time preserving its rural character owing to the direction and control of its development by persons with a definite ideal to preserve. The industrial villages like Port Sunlight, where all the workers in the great industrial enterprises to which they are attached have their own gardens and allotments, and are thus not altogether separated from the soil, are examples to be studied.

The portion of rural England subject to constant encroachment 1 Chapter XII.

19-(1752)

by the towns, is a precious possession which must be rightly used, not for the benefit of individuals only, but with a constant eye to the best National interests. We scarcely realized before the war how essential is a rural population, and that Germany had thirteen persons employed in agriculture to every 100 acres of cultivated area, and France ten, while in the United Kingdom there were slightly under five.

It is obviously not a question of climate and soil alone which makes this enormous difference. It is that, with our common tradition of laissez-faire, we have allowed the State to look on and make no really effective effort to increase the rural population. We must get a public opinion which warmly approves every rural village where healthy, independent, and prosperous families are being added to the country-side; and one which, when land is required for housing, refuses to accept the excuse that because a certain land-agent likes large farms better than small ones, or because a certain body of large farmers in a parish is against small holders; or because in certain cases independent men in homes of their own discourage interference with sport, land cannot be obtained. This will come to be the policy of National patriotism.

CHAPTER XXXVII

CONCLUSION

To sum up the whole problem, it is clear that housing is a health proposition, and that its solution will bring about the raising of the standard of life, with a consequent increase of output and a larger production of wealth.

Conclusion.

In the past, 90 per cent. of the housing of the working classes has been dependent upon private enterprise, which has resulted in the overcrowding of millions of citizens, to the detriment of their physical, intellectual and moral well-being. This is true of all classes of the community. It becomes intensified every day, as, with the demobilization of the forces, there is shown to be inadequate housing to provide homes for the men who have married during the war. The wives have, in many cases, continued to live with their parents, and to follow their pre-war or other occupations. In other cases, these wives have found rooms in homes where the husband has been away on service. His return has rendered the war-bride homeless, and, in many cases, without shelter. Husbands are living in one part of the country, and wives in another. Wives are sleeping with mothers, and husbands are sleeping on couches in kitchens or parlours. There are many thousands who are leading this unnatural and unhealthy existence because of the house famine. To meet the present emergency problem the aid of the State must be invoked, to cease, however, as early as possible. Present defects must be remedied, houses must be adapted to present-day requirements, and a large scheme of housing and town planning must be undertaken on the outskirts of our great cities and towns linking them together wherever in proximity. Nor must the housing of our villages be neglected.

In order to meet the shortage in rural areas, the Government, local authorities, railways and public bodies should be compelled to house the whole of their servants in rural districts.

Having provided sufficient accommodation, then the removal of existing slums must next be tackled, and, at the same time, a

systematic survey of the whole country undertaken to eradicate the remaining defects. It has been proved that the compensation paid by local authorities in the past,

Slum
Removal.

both for insanitary dwellings and for public-houses within slum areas, has been out of all proportion to their worth, and a complete violation of economic principles. Such compensation must cease, for only a few wealthy local authorities could stand the financial burden. It is not right that the community should be exploited for the benefit of slum profiteers.

With the removal of the slum must come also the removal of restrictions imposed by the central authority upon local authorities, requiring them to re-house the dispossessed within the area. With the exception of certain classes who, by reason of their occupation, must be housed within easy reach of their work, it is wasteful, from an economic standpoint, to house people upon sites which could more conveniently be devoted to offices, warehouses and shops. What is required is a keener appreciation of values and a recognition of the absurdity of writing down site values in the endeavour to secure fictitious economic rent for dwelling-houses when the area could be more useful as a centre of industrial enterprise. To this end local authorities should be encouraged to acquire land in advance of immediate needs. Whenever there is a demand for further housing, estates should be town-planned by local authorities, and leased to private builders, and to public or municipal utility societies to whom they should be empowered to advance money at low rates of interest.1

" Social Unrest.

The only real solution of the problem, however, is an educated demand for the proper kind of house in the future. Workers, the world over, are dissatisfied, and it must be admitted that there is just cause for much dissatisfaction. What is the meaning of it all? Is it merely a desire for more wages, or shorter hours, or a larger control of even the actual ownership of industry? In some measure it is so, but the root cause is a yearning after a fuller life.

'Tis life, not death, for which we pant,
'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
More life and fuller, that we want. 2

1 This power has now been conferred by the 1919 Act.

2 Charles Kingsley.

Industrial unrest is, after all, but the outward evidence of a desire for an improved standard of life, which must include a better housing standard. One of the best concrete signs of progress is the increase in the number of rooms in a house, and in the rise of the standard of comfort. For years past, Royal commissions, departmental and select committees and investigators on behalf of social and economic bodies, have unanimously declared for improved housing conditions, and the abolition of the system of low wages. Apart altogether from any considerations of humanity and equity, it is economically unsound that a large proportion of the population of the country should be short of the necessaries of life. At least it may be claimed that, if wages were raised and the prices of necessaries were lowered, there would be an improvement in the standard of living and a gradual uplifting of the moral tone of those who have been considered as the "submerged tenth." This, in its turn, would be productive of increased output and a diminution of social and industrial unrest, which would lead to greater opportunity for recreation, study and reflection, resulting in the awakening in men of a desire for development upon their own lines in the direction of greater economic freedom. We have still to learn the great moral lesson of what is true wealth. John Ruskin in Unto this Last has thus defined it

There is no Wealth but Life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

At the present time, custom regulates the economic action of most men more powerfully than any calculation of utility which they are able to make. Nor does such custom represent the average judgment of the community as to the things needed for the comforts and happiness of its members, but, as has been pointed out, 1 it represents an average absence of judgment-a survival of habits. which doubtless proved useful in times past, but which, in many instances, have entirely outlived their usefulness.

But, it may be asked, can we expect any other measure of economic progress from a community whose conditions of housing are such 1 Hadley's Economics.