31 JANUARY 1920, Page 20

The Housing of the Unskilled Wage-Earner. By Ethel Elmer Wood.

(Macmillan. 10s. net.)—Mrs. Wood is concerned with the housing problem in the United States, where it seems to be even more acute than it is here. We commend her admiring account of British pioneer work in this department of ,social reform to those who assume that Great Britain is always behind other countries. Mrs. Wood describes the bad housing conditions in New York and other cities, and the attempts that have been made by public bedies and private initiative to effect an improve- ment. Poverty is a root cause of bad housing, even in America. Mrs. Wood quotes a New Jersey official Report of February, 1918, for the statement that two-thirds of the wage-earners in the State received less, on the average, than fifteen dollars a week, despite the very high war prices then prevailing. Our social problems are not exceptional.