The Government's housing policy came under review in a discussion
of the financial resolution to the Housing Bill. There was no weakening in the general support of the idea of enlisting private enterprise in the building of cheap houses to let, but the original plan of the Government appears to have been rather undigested. Sir Hilton Young went far in meeting criticisms. Until private enterprise gets going on a large scale, there will be a " hang-over " of subsidized house-building. There will be a statutory enforcement of proper housing con- ditions. The ideas of a national housing corporation to finance building on public utility lines and of the usefulness of reconditioning in slum clearance are to be explored at once. It is hoped that these measures will keep up a steady and large supply of cheap houses, which, as Lord Eustace Percy forcibly observed, is a necessary feature of the success of the new experiment. Colonel Chapman always speaks sensibly and modestly, and therefore his statement that the smaller building societies will find it difficult to co-operate on the lines agreed by their larger brethren was a little disquieting.
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