Rent and Mortgage Interest Act) as houses of the ordinary working class type built and let before the war; (b) That the local authorities give out of the rates 4l. 10s. per house or such lesser sum as will enable them to let the houses at the rents named above. The rents are not to be higher than those coming within the formula set out in (a) unless the loss is such that it exceeds the 13. 10s. provided conjointly by the State and the local authority. In the case of the loss being greater than 13l. 10s., additions are to be made to the rent. It is understood that the Government will give additional grants to those local authorities with great housing needs and small rateable values, and especially liberal aid will be given to local authorities for purely agricultural areas in which the rents are low and in which the rate of wages paid is such as to render it impossible for agricultural labourers to pay rents on an urban scale. It should not be too much to hope that these points will receive more attention than was devoted to them when the Housing Act, 1923, was under consideration in the House of Commons. Just as at the present time there is a differentiation between one.locality and another as regards the scale in force for teachers' salaries under the Burnham award or for police pay under the findings of the Desborough Committee, there is no reason why there should not be different regional scales of State contribution towards housing schemes. In many industrial towns where the housing shortage is most acute the local rates are already overburdened by unemployment relief charges; when local rates are 20s. or 30s. in the pound, there is a limit to whatever the most zealous housing reformers can do without adequate State assistance. In so far as the shortage is due to the cessation of housebuilding during the war and to the influx of outsiders into industrial areas to speed up the manufacture of munitions, these are national and not local causes. The State therefore should accept responsibility for the results of its own actions and not seek to saddle them upon already overburdened ratepayers. This loss, if treated as a war charge, would be one of the few from which any lasting benefit to the community would accrue. Local authorities, if granted increased aid, are prepared to continue the good work they are doing and to bear in the future, if necessary, an even greater burden than in the past, realising that the health of the community depends upon an enlightened housing policy. This does not necessarily mean that the local authorities will build the houses themselves by direct labour, but that they will, as in the past, by means of competitive tenders, employ private enterprise to do for them that which private enterprise admits it is unable to do by itself. Inasmuch as State funds are to be used, Parliament is entitled to lay down certain general conditions which must accompany the grant. This need not mean interference and control of operations from 'Whitehall,' but merely that when application is made to the Treasury for the grant it should be accompanied by a certificate that the local authority has complied with these conditions. The higher standard of dwelling required by the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1919 must be maintained. In urban districts not more than twelve houses to the acre should be allowed. Not less than three bedrooms should be provided, so that as the children grow up the decencies of life may be observed. A bath should be found in every house. As regards the first condition, as the average price paid for land acquired under the 1919 Housing Act was 200l. per acre, the substitution of twelve for twenty houses per acre means only a difference of 2d. per week in the rent. It is not necessary or desirable that in every case each house should occupy one-twelfth of an acre, but it is important in planning out an estate that sufficient land should be provided for playgrounds, breathing spaces and similar amenities. The other conditions are such obvious necessities of healthy family life as to need no comment. It is urged in some quarters that these proposals involve a subsidy of wages, to which it might be replied that abnormal conditions call for exceptional treatment. Apart however from that, we must face the probability that for some years to come the lower-paid workers will not be able to pay an economic rent for such houses. Does this mean they must be condemned to live for all time in that inferior type of dwelling which in pre-war days was called a home? If we are to have a higher standard of comfort and of decency all round we must face the fact that, unless there is a considerable increase in the wages of the lowerpaid worker, it will be necessary to continue this assistance if he is to have a home worthy of the name. Is there anything very alarming in this proposition? Does not each local authority at the present time provide various health services out of public funds? The whole sewage and cleansing systems of our towns, our fever hospitals, our maternity and child welfare centres, our school clinics, our swimming baths, parks, and recreation grounds, and in some cases our water supplies, are already communal health services, and therefore no new principle is involved in adding the provision of improved dwelling-houses to the list. With regard to this being a subsidy of wages, no one need feel that any new economic heresy is involved, unless he or she is prepared to repudiate all responsibility for our system of free education, which many of us desire to see extended to the utmost limits. In 1870 the State, realising the national necessity of a sound education for all, took upon its shoulders the responsibility of supplementing the supply of schools then available. It would appear that the time has now come for similar State action in regard to housing. A healthy home for each child is as essential to national wellbeing as a sound education. In the same way as the State in 1870 provided schools where there was a failure on the part of the voluntary system to do so, so in 1924 the State must accept the responsibility for seeing that where private enterprise fails to provide a decent, healthy home for each child adequate provision is forthcoming. Quite apart from the desire to see that every child born into the world has a reasonable chance of healthy surroundings, this expenditure can be more than justified on the narrow grounds of pounds, shillings and pence. From inquiries made by Dr. Addison when Minister of Health it was ascertained that the total annual direct cost of tuberculosis to the community in England and Wales was 14,250,000l., and he estimated from figures in his possession that the loss to the public in any one year from ill-health and consequent loss of work directly due to bad housing was no less a sum than 42,367,000l. (The Betrayal of the Slums, see pp. 88 and 99). It is obvious that the saving of but a part of these charges would more than compensate for the whole of the subsidies required for the better housing of our slum population. It is not suggested that any expensive scheme of buying out slum landlords should be undertaken. The most effective way of dealing with the slum problem is to build a sufficiency of new houses and then fearlessly close every house that is not reasonably fit for habitation. It is true, the present slum dwellers will not themselves occupy the new houses, but there will be a gradual filtration upwards and outwards, which will most effectively and economically solve the slum problem. To summarise these conclusions: 1. Private enterprise unaided cannot supply present housing needs. 2. Public assistance is necessary, and should be given through public authorities, so that the whole benefit may reach the public and not be intercepted by private interests. 3. The burden cannot be borne by the local ratepayer. The problem is a national one, and the bulk of the loss should be contributed by the National Exchequer. 4. A high standard of dwelling should be maintained with good planning and adequate accommodation. 5. A comprehensive programme is required extending over a period of years. No haphazard opportunist scheme is of any use. 6. A healthy nation is as important as a well-educated one; public assistance, therefore, is equally necessary and justifiable in both cases. TREVELYAN THOMSON. LIFE AND SCENES IN LONDON I. BETHNAL GEEEN 1 BETHNAL GREEN has been described as London's poorest slum, and I do not quarrel with the term. It is a very dreadful place. Yet the approach is not particularly disagreeable. Bethnal Green Road is a wide street; Cambridge Road, through which it passes, is a good thoroughfare; and even Green Street, into which it runs on its way to a bridge leading to the Roman Road of Bow, is not unpleasant. But on each side of Green Street lie dozens of small streets and alleys, ugly, mean, uncomfortable. It was a matter of surprise to me to find out that some of these deplorable houses are only about thirty years old; I had supposed that the conscience of the nation was then stirring in its sleep. A few days ago I was in Bethnal Green, and turned up a narrow street off Green Street, thence into a narrower one, and found myself entering a sort of slit between houses, an alley, a cul de sac, so narrow that a stranger might well miss it, not dreaming that anyone could live there. Yet several families exist within these hemming walls, in the houses which face each other across a yard or so of flagging. The family I wished to visit lives at the top of one of these houses, and rent two rooms. On the right is the bedroom-the bed usually unmade-on the left is the 'living'-room; the suite is inhabited by a man, his wife, seven sons and one daughter, three of the children being under four years of age. There was a fire in the living room, for the day before had been washing day, and on cords stretched immediately over the family dining-table hung a collection of wet garments. For a few moments the mother managed to quiet her 'three under four,' and sank thankfully into a chair for a chat. 'The rent is 8s. 6d. a week,' she said. 'If only there were any place to put anything! There is not so much as a cupboard. Or if only we could get another room, now that the eldest is getting a big boy, and goes out to work! He's getting on well, and his 1 'Poplar-Apart from Politics,' by Miss Sydney K. Phelps, was published in The Nineteenth Century and After for April, 1924. VOL. XCV-No. 568 919 30 |