Evening star., 1919-02-16

be no houses for many Of
those who made war marriages and
have not yet set up In housek eepinr.
Many more, half million perhaps,
VIII go home TO squeeze themselves
INTO cottages and tenement dwellings
where there are more than two grown
persons TO room. Others Will not
be able to get houses near their
work.
1t Is a pre-war problem, war prob
lem and an after-war problem.
britain has for centuries deluded her
sell with the idea that healthy
ianliies can be brought up like rats
IN celiars. IN TACT, none of the old
ana long-settied countries has had n
decent standard of working class
housing, and if Americans find
British housing policy Incredibly
backward. they must make what
allowance they can for the paralyzing
efects of ancient custom and the
difficulty of building on ancient sites.
,k II
The English town / know best has
round about 5000 inhabitants-a mere.
village judged by modern standards.
1t has one of the largest cattle
markets in the country, mayor, a
corporation, petty sessions. five
schools and nine churches. It's
history goes back to Roman times;
it once had a mint; Oliver Cromwell
had farm there. This village is,
puiit along one bank of a large slow
river. The other bank is meadow
land which l have known to be flood
ed five times in a winter. A quarter
OK mike from the center of the town
III all other directions there are no
wells in the heavy clay A very un-
satisfactory water supply is now
brought from a distance, but for
fifteen centuries every one who lived
there and wished to have water to
drink, but not to live in. had to build
IN the narraw lanes of n site of about
halt square mile on soil already
stale with occupation and almost
ter-logged. What wonder that a
nest OF airless slums looks across the
mile of green, windswept pastures? 4
But England has awakened to the
fact that health, intellect, even NOR,
ais, are greatly dependent upon de-
cent housing. 1t is possible to ne
physically robust genius in house
unht for human habitation, just as ii
Is possible to have Il pure soul in a
hithy BODY. But ii is undeniably diff
cuit' The government is about TO
advance money for the building of
100000 working class houses in the
first year of peace.
building on this scale Will be en-
ormously costly, but it will be only n
beginning, and a small beginning of
the necessary reform. England and
Wales must have 100000 houses and
Scotland 100000, to provide for the
normal increase of population during
these war years, when building has
been almost a a standstili But when
TINS is done. one-tenth of the popuia-
ton VIII still be, as the census of
1911 stated, living in overcrowded
conditions" The compf1ers of that
census did not regard three-room
cottage as oVercrowded when six
grown persons or couple with eight
children lived in it; a little raising
of this standard would necessitate
thousands moro houses.
Moreover, these packed tbut not
technically overcrowded) dwellings
are many of them manifestly unfit
for human habitation. Some are built
back to back, without possibility of
ventilation except through front VIM
dows. Some, especially in country
districts, have no access to good
ws'er supply; more have leaky roofs.
walls that are not weatherproof, bad
ventilation, defective flooring and lit
tie light.
X
Thousands which are structurally
tolerahle have no proper cooking
range, no gas, no larder, only one
cupboard by the kitchen fire: stairs
that seem TO have been designed by
Herod for the massacre of infants.
Not one in 10 900 has electric light
or hot water laid on. A nation which
has asked so much of its sons and
has received so magnificent n re-
and live in conditions that no pro-
his stock. They went from slums and
hovels, very many of them. to risk
their lives on the field of honor; it
would indeed be a black crime" as
Walter Long said when he was ypresi.
dent of the local government board
TO let them come back to something
little better than n pigsty."
nevertheless, the cost of bringing
working class housing to civilized
level Will be enormous. The expense
of building during the war has al
most doubled. The government report
on Scottish housing issued In Novem-
Der estimates that one-third of the
cost of cottage building consists OF
wage-payments. which cannot be ex-
pected to drop much for many months
or even years, and that there is
shortage of all building materials,
more especially of timber. Cottage
,bpilding, except in growing industrial
districts, was notoriously unremuner-
atiye even before the war. bringing as
an Interest on the capital expended
,littles more, than government stock,
.sl Al ~