TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE SLUM AND THE EMERGENCY HOUSE
" rrIESE are things," said Cromwell to his Parliament, " for which God will call you to answer." Why will not Mr. Baldwin "tell the new Parliament that of the slums ? I am sure he feels the horror and the shame of the slums as much as any man in the nation, and is in his heart passionately anxious to eradicate this infamy. But will he proceed to action, with all its difficulties and dangers ?
Why is it that the shuns are not abolished ? We have been talking about the slums, inquiring into slums, legislating about slums, for the past forty years, and yet the slums are still standing where they ought not— as utter an abomination of desolation as that which once defiled the Temple and Mount Zion. Is it because we are hypocrites and only pretend that our hearts bleed to see men, women and children huddled together in dirt and darkness, ten together in rooms which should not hold more than three ? No. Is it that we have grudged or could not find the money to put matters right ? No. What was the reason then ? What is it now ?
We left the slums standing, even let them add to their number, because we neglected to be active and practical, because we failed to will the means- as well as will the end. When the Government, or a municipality, or other public body, or a semi-public body like a charity or 'a university, or, again, a private landlord, determines to 0t rid of a slum, he is at once faced with the problem of displacement. Where are the people living ,in the slum to live while the slum is being pulled down and rebuilt ? .So great and, pressing, indeed, is the shortage Of even roof-cOver for men's heads that only a very bold man will now be a party to lightly destroying even the worst and dirtiest "dwelling.. The sanitary officials in many places, rural as well as "urban, have, for this reason, almost stopped cOndeinning houses as Unfit for hiiman habitation. They feel under existing conditions that it is a farce to dose)." They can be so easily countered with the question, not ironic, but strictly practical, "But isn't a road, or. an open *field, or a ditch, even lea. fit for habitation by young children, old men and wonien, and expectant mothers than the house you arc Closing ? "
" Why not put the slum. people in some of the new houses which, after all, are springing up everywhere, though, no doubt, not in sufficient numbers " The answer is that most of these new houses' arc already " bespoke " and often three or four times over. The . • young people who want to marry must have a chance.
" They will really appreciate and respect and loOk after the new houses, whereas the Slunimers ' would not." Besides, the slum people already have roofs of a sort over their heads. Also, they are accustomed to their sur- roundings and incapable of further 'demoralization, &c., &c., &c.". So runs the wretehed argument !
" How, then, is it to be dealt with ? " In the way in which competent commanders have dealt- with the similar argument that the enemy's position was too strongly held to be assaulted, or that the force available for attack was insufficient, or- that it would cost too many Men, or that it was a good general principle to wait a little, or, finally, that things could not be worse and might improve later, if not rashly handled. Such arguments ma.y- sound good, may even be good, per se ; but their practical value depends entirely on the need for dislodging the enemy. If it is absolutely necessary, means for a successful attack, however costly, must be devised and used, and used quickly. Here, then, "we reach the crux Of the whole matter. We have got to take adion. The policy of doing nothing, though it seems so innocent, is in reality pushing rashness and recklessness to the limit.
Here is our proposal. When a slum area in town or country or a single house has been condemned as unfit for human habitation, or ought to be so condemned and has not been only for the reasons given above, the people should be got out and the houses cloSed within six weeks, or at the most in two months. The way to do this is the way of war. Suppose a general finds that he Must have a large body of troops at a particular place by a particular date. The War Office 'gives order's to have the necessary- buildings -put up, either at home or in the field—buildings which, whatever they may look like outside, are perfectly comfortable, and in every way fit for human occupation. The materials usually employed are wood, or concrete, or corrugated iron, or steel plates or asbestos, or rubberoid,- or other such material stretched over frames. The houses are, that is to say, made of materials which can be manufactured in mass and assembled where needed like a Ford car.
The moment an order has gone forth that_ a slum or single house is uninhabitable; a public authority must at once ensure the erection of the emergency houses required, and not only for a portion of the slum dwellers, but for all of them. This duty of providing emergency houses must be performed, in my opinion, not by the local authority, though it may be through the local authority, but by the Central Government. If the thing is left to the local authority the temptations to doing nothing or too little might prove irresistible. Our public authorities are not as a rule corrupt, but occasionally they have on theni too many representatives, if not of slum owners, at least of small householders. Again, the municipalities theMselves are often slum otyries and terrible sinners in 'the matter of delay, though I admit that it is easy to see the way in which they have slipped into their habit of procrastination. Again, the financial question is often a-great difficulty' . There- fore we would have an ad hoc body created under the Ministry of Health," to be called say " Commissioners for Dealing with Insanitary Dwellings," or shortly, " The Slum Authority." It should be the business of the local sanitary inspectors to report all houses judged unfit for human habitation not only to the Comniii- sioners but to their 'own local employers. Finally, the Commissioners should be prepared to consider evidence from non-official sources that certain habita- tions are insanitary and should be condemned: In that case they would send their own inspectors.
As soon as it was- decided that a building or area was unfit for human habitation, the Commissioners, acting again as if under war conditions, should make provision for the required number of emergency houses. Por this purpose they should be given power to take tem- porary. possession of unoccupied land, paying, of course, proper compensation. Such ground should in the first place, and if suitable, be requisitioned from the Ager Publicus. By this I mean any land belonging to a public authority, or subject to public uses, as are, of course, the lands of the Crown, of the Ecclesiastical Commis- sioners and of all endowed charities and other public institutions. In the rare cases in which no land, public or private, could be 'found which wou d be convenient for the purpose, then, much as I hate the dishevelMent of our towns, I would without a moment's hesitation erect the necessary houses in public parks or recreation grounds, as was done in the War. To do that would be a proof to people that the Government. really meant business and were not going to let obstacles, selfish or aesthetic, interfere with winning their war: against the slum. .
A point to be met in the closing of slums has to do with compensation. A man has no more right to let an insanitary and, therefore, poisonous house than he has to sell poisonous drugs or poisonous food. Therefore, there is no hardship, economic or moral, in adopting the principle that no man must receive money for the sale or hire of commodities which have been declared to be insanitary. The moment, therefore, that any dwelling is declared to be unfit for habitation, all rent must automatically cease, whether it has been possible or not to get the dwellers to leave. I would not, however, let even a public authority collect rents for slums. The result would be that everybody concerned would be anxious to get the slums emptied. Then must come the order for immediate demolition. Otherwise sooner or later the people will sneak back, as the monks did when the Abbeys were dissolved. Thomas, Lord Cromwell, it may be remembered, dealt with that prob- lem wisely, if brutally. " The only way to get rid of the rooks is to cut down the rookery " was his slogan. As soon as the houses were demolished by, or under, the superintendence of the Commissioners the land would either, be handed back to its owners, for them to deal with, or else obtained at a reasonable price by the munici- pality and the new houses required would be erected thereon—unless there were some good reasons against rebuilding on the old site. In almost all cases, however, there must be new houses or blocks of houses put up in compensation for the old dwellings. Otherwise the emergency houses would turn into permanent houses, though here it may be said that probably it would be necessary to make a rule that in no case must the re- building on the slum or on equivalent area be longer delayed than two years. Though in many cases the emergency houses would be taken down and moved on to some other place, there would also be a great many cases in which the emergency houses would prove, and they certainly would in the case of wooden and steel houses, capable of becoming permanent contributions to the housing problem, or at any rate, contributions that would last fifty or sixty years. At this moment there are wooden hutments in use at Aldershot which were put up as emergency hutments at the time of the Crimean War.
The questions, What are the best forms of emergency houses ? How rapidly can they be erected ? What will be the cost, and what.are the conditions of suitability? cannot be discuSsed to-day. I hope,. however, to deal with them in a practical spirit next week. The experience which I acquired at the Cheap Cottages Exhibition at the Garden City some twenty years ago leads me to believe that the problem of the emergency loine is by no means as difficult as it seems, and that it can be solved without undue expense, if it is thoroughly investigated in the light of publicity. The essential point is that the matter should not merely be talked about, or written about, but that actual experimental emergency houses should be put up in order that there may be judgment as to which kinds are the best fitted for use in present circum- stances. But, remember, such emergency houses must not be allowed to shade off into something of a different character. We must never forget that they are buildings of occasion and,. of use, and not flimsy little villas, or "Cosy _Cots." ST. LOE sTt_trlizy.
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