MR. LLOYD GEORGE AND THE HOUSING QUESTION. [To THE EDITOR
OF THE " SPECTiTOR."] SIR,—May I, as one having considerable experience regarding one, and perhaps the most important, subject in Mr. Lloyd George's speeches dealt with by you last week, draw attention to some aspects of that question of which you seem not to be aware? The question to which I refer is the all-important one of the health of the working classes, especially in the manufacturing districts.
Mr. Lloyd George, the Spectator says, was " well inspired" when he bethought him of the discovery brought to light by the examination of recruits for the war, as to the ghastly degenera- tion in physique of our urban working men. It is little to the credit of a politician of some thirty years' standing, who has posed as the champion of the working classes, and who is sup- posed to know one district of Manchester, that he has only learned this fact in time for an electioneering speech in November, 1918, and that he never moved a finger when absorbed with the mis- deeds of " the last of the litter " to remove the obvious conditions which have so seriously affected the health of the workers, and are certainly not due to the inherent vices of that class which "the longer it is kept the more it stinks—like old cheese,' as he elegantly expressed it. The deadly conditions in operation, and their results, were well known to many, especially to authorities on public health. I do not mean " Public Health Authorities," who are usually entirely ignorant of the subject, and whose members, largely owners of slum property, are determined opposers of its destruction or improvement, and unfailingly extin- guish the activity of their "Health Authority," the Medical Officer of Health, by making him feel that he is their "paid servant." Your readers can imagine the feelings of the " Authority on Public Health " who reports-to his Sanitary Committee that the whole of the houses in half-a-dozen courts are utterly unfit for human habitation and should be closed, and that notices should be served to that effect on the owners, Councillors A, B, and C, who are members of the Sanitary Committee, and had refused to provide windows which could be opened, to remove privies the contents of which soaked through the wall of the dwelling-room, to have drains provided, to prevent overcrowding, to make the roofs rainproof, and remove three pigsties. The result of that report was a violent outburst of rage against the " Authority on Health" for daring to assume he had duties to perform, that he knew what constituted healthy houses, above all for daring to take proceedings against " his masters," and finally the courts were never closed; nor improved, and exist as they were to-day, after a dozen years. Not so the inhabitants—they have pined, degenerated, died. Children have been born among the fetid filth, mostly to die, the remainder to grow up so degenerate in physique as not to be " fit food for guns," and bad enough to make Mr. Lloyd George, when making an electioneering speech, pause to wipe his eyes; I have given here an actual experience, and it is typical of what is going on over the country. The housing cf the working classes is largely atrocious, but the plans have been approved by the Public Health Authority; or, in the case of very old property, they are tolerated. Property of this dan- gerous class is almost entirely in the hands of small shopkeepers and jobbers, and not of county families and nobility. Obviously the laws—there are many—which deal with the conditions of such property need radical amendment. The Local Government Board, the fountain of sanitary, authority, has always been hopelessly behind the knowledge of " Authorities on Health." The President has never been a man known as an authority on public health, its medical staff has not been recruited among men who had won a repution as authorities on hygiene. The same is true of those who fill the very important posts of supervising school hygiene.. We place men in such important positions where they begin to learn, and when they have learned they may not tender advice, being only " paid servants " of a Committee consisting of perfectly ignorant men so far as hygiene is concerned.
• Your advice as to the beneficial effects of universal military training will be approved by all " Authorities on Health."
Whether any Medical Officer of Health will have the courage to say so I doubt. In my district he certainly will not, as his Chair- man is a declared Socialist and Pacificist. Can you suggest how a different spirit and a change of law can be brought about which will save our workers from further physical degeneration, with which mental healta is sure to decline?—I am, Sir, &c.,
EXPERTO CREDE.
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