MR. CROSS'S FIRST MEASURE.
MR. CROSS'S Bill, introduced on Monday, for "the im- provement of the dwellings of the poor" is a good Bill, as far as it goes, but it goes very little way, and will not do much either to justify its very ambitious title, or to redeem the pledges which many Tories have given to the poorer householders. We question if it will benefit the "Conservative working-men" at all. It is a Bill to enable the Municipal Councils of the very large cities and towns to pull down unwholesome rookeries, and cover the vacant spaces with "Peabody Buildings," but it attempts to effect nothing for the general benefit of workmen. The Home Secretary is a great deal too much afraid of county Members to attack the country cottages, which need rebuilding -quite as much as city "dens," and too desirous of support from medium boroughs to threaten the horrible collections of hovels which in places like Merthyr Tydvil, a few old county towns, and many new towns in the North, disgrace those who own and demoralise those who occupy them. He limits his philanthropy entirely to the great cities, and even there he throws the whole burden of work upon the local Councils, and of risk upon the over-cautious and half-impoverished ratepayers. The Treasury is to give no aid, not even in the shape of a cheap loan. The only assistance offered by the Government of any pecuniary value is a Parliamentary title for the expropriated sites without the expense of procuring a Private Bill, and this, it must not be forgotten, though extremely valuable, costs the general taxpayer less than nothing. What is given may be very briefly described. Whenever the health officers of any of the great cities included in the Registrar-General's returns of mor- tality condemn a district as incurably unhealthy, the Council may purchase the houses in that district at market price, lay out new roads, lease or sell the spaces to capitalists willing to erect Peabody Buildings of some kind—that is, healthy barracks for the poorer classes—or in extreme cases, should capitalists decline to come forward, may take to erecting such buildings themselves. This is all, and it is vain to conceal from ourselves that this may prove to be nothing. The medical officers, we dare say, will do their duty willingly. The Councils will not be indisposed to effect great improvements in their cities, if they can do it at reasonable cost. But the ultimate power will rest with the ratepayers, and we may take it as certain that in places, for example, like Liverpool, where the work to be done will include the clearing- away of entire quarters of rotten but profitable houses, the verdict of the ratepayers will depend upon the amount of the loss to be incurred, and the loss may be considerable. We do not, it is true, think that the proprietors of the condemned districts, who are often much embarrassed, will very strongly resist. We perceive that Mr. Cross has abolished the 10 per cent, premium usually given to owners whose property is expropriated by law. We are fully aware of the large saving secured in legal expenses by the grant of a Parliamentary title, and by the power con- ferred on the Home Secretary of dispensing, by his recorded sanction to proposals, with the existing necessity for carrying a Private Bill. But, nevertheless, we cannot doubt that the Government arbitrator, who is, in the first instance, to settle values, will be very much afraid of the cry of "confiscation," or that the juries to whom an appeal from him will lie will be very "liberal" in their views of a just market price, or that much of the land taken will be absorbed in the new streets to be opened out, or that capitalists will be a good deal alarmed by the stern restrictions as to designs, materials, and rental which must of necessity be placed upon them. The Glasgow plan of expropriating more property than is wanted for the buildings, and selling that to advantage, cannot be generally carried out, and everything will depend upon the price capitalists will venture to give for sites for what for years to come must be experimental structures. The loss at first to the Councils may be considerable, and if it is, the ratepayers will soon find means to make the Bill a dead-letter. Obstruction is always easy, Councillors do not want to lose their seats, or Medical Officers to risk their appointments, and Mr. Cross would have done well to sweeten his pill a little by an offer of cheap loans.
Nevertheless, limited as the project is, and tainted as it is by the hope of catching the borough workmen, who vote, while neglecting the rural workmen, who do not vote, the Bill apart from its title is well conceived, and may fairly be supported. It is not a Bill for the improvement of poor dwellings, but is
' a Bill to extinguish city "rookeries," and they ought to be Iextinguished. Nothing can be more clearly established by I evidence, than the existence of small districts in London and I all great cities in which disease has become engrained, in 1 which drainage is impossible or useless, the soil itself being ' putrid, in which the death-rate of adults is double the proper
! average, in which children die "like flies in rner, four
air. These districts are foci of epidemic disease they raise snnout of five sometimes perishing before they are five years old, and in which reckless drinking is a direct consequence of foul
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the death-rate of whole cities, and they destroy half the sani- tary effect of fresh water, good drainage, and improved medical skill. They cannot be improved by any method short of complete destruction, and individual proprietors, partly from want of means, partly from difficulties of title, but chiefly from want of union, cannot destroy them. Indeed, if they could, little good would be effected, for these districts want improvements out of the range of private enterprise,—new streets, new main-drainage, and in many cases, new soil. Vigorous Councils can, if they please, under this Bill, clear such districts away ; and they may be able to induce philanthropic capitalists to run the risk of showing the business men that good barracks for the poorer classes will pay. If they can—and as they can obviate legal expenses, and give sound titles, they ought to be successful—the advantage will be great, for although "the poor" cannot occupy these new houses, the workmen can, and their occupation of them leaves houses free for the people evicted in order to effect the clearances, which clearances of themselves will be an unmistakable sani- tary gain. Ultimately, of course, the whole work must be done on business principles, with the expectation of securing fair interest for outlays, and we rather dread the direct action of Councils, which may job, and may also be liable to a popular clamour for a reduction of rents ; but at first something must be risked, if only to settle clearly what the cost of clearing our cities is. If it should prove manageable, a grand step will have been taken in the direction in which improvement is now most wanted,—the civilisation of the huge aggregates of houses in which half our population must for the future be content to live. A great deal is wanted in our cities—light, for example—of which sanitary reformers take too little notice, but health is the first object, and Mr. Cross's Bill is a first and a bold step towards securing health.
We say it is a bold step, because we expect considerable re- sistance to the soundest provision in the Bill. So engrained in England is the reverence for property, that we have never yet succeeded in drawing a clear legal distinction between the claims of owners whose property is taken for the public convenience, and those of owners whose property is condemned as a public nuisance. That a man whose house is taken for a railway should receive a little more than its value may be fair enough. The house may have a sentimental value for him, or may be specially suited to his habits, or he may be aware of causes which in a few years will greatly increase its value. Violent expropriation under such circumstances only tends to increase the resistance to necessary projects, and has hitherto, by one of those com- promises which in England make legislation possible, been avoided. But the proprietor whose " block " is undrained, or unhealthy, or dangerous to passers-by, or in any other way a public nuisance, has no such claim upon consideration. He would have great difficulty in proving his moral claim even to the bare value—which is not given to the proprietor say of in- jurious chemical works—and he certainly is not entitled to a shilling more. Nevertheless, we expect a fierce fight over that point, and rather honour the Home Secretary for his courage in insisting on it in such a House. The Tory squirearchy will see quite clearly that it will establish a precedent for pulling down dis- graceful villages, and they will fight it tooth and nail, and produce, we have not a doubt, one very plausible argument. They will say the houses in St. Giles's and places of that kind are bad, not because they are bad houses, but because population has crowded up to them until they have become unfit to live in. Are they to be fined because London has grown so great? We say "Yes." They have fattened for years on the profits of that crowding-up, and have done nothing to remedy itt. ill-effects, and if they have pocketed unearned increment of rent, they must suffer by the accompanying increment of disease. They, might as well contend for compensation for the Lodging-house Act as for compensation for a sanitary Act like this, and if Mr. Cross wants Liberal support, he must adhere to his own origi- nal and most just view. That policy will make a demand on his moral courage ; but if he pursues it, we think the only addition
to his Bill which it will be expedient to press is its extension to any borough, whatever its size, in which the Registrar- General reports that the death-rate is abnormally high, or obviously caused by preventible disease. That amendment would bring Mr. Disraeli's "Hell-house Yard" under the Act.
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