THE COTTAGE PROBLEM.
[TO TUE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,--As one who acted in the capacity of Assistant- Commissioner to the Royal Commission on Labour, and who thoroughly investigated the cottage accommodation of one Union in each of six counties, I demur to the conclusions you derive from the evidence of a writkr in the Daily. Hews as to a dearth of cottages in the rural districts of England generally. That writer's remarks appear to have been bleed upon two or three instances of insufficient cottage accommo- dation, which are really exceptions to the general rule. In consequence of the great decrease in the rural population, there were empty cottages in the great majority of the parishes that I visited, and other Assistant-Commissioners found the like state of affairs common in other parts of England. Empty cottages were especially numerous on farms or in other isolated situations. These dwellings were built to afford accommodation to men working on the farms, so that there would be no considerable distance to walk to and from the place of working. But the women, if not the men, very commonly objected to the loneliness and incon- venience of living away from a village, and I heard of numerous instances of excellent cottages, with large gardens, on farms, at extremely low rents, being deserted in favour of hovels, with little or no gardens, and at doubled rents, in village streets. Examples are to be found in most, or all, counties of parishes or hamlets insufficiently supplied with cottages, so that some men have to live a mile or two miles from the farms on which they work ; but these are exceptions to the general rule of superfluity rather than insufficiency of cottages. As to the condition of cottages in country districts, it varies from that of dwellings locally styled "little palaces" to that of hovels which are a disgrace to their owners. Almost without exception, however, it was found by all the Assistant-Com- missioners that the cottages on the great estates were vastly superior to those in the open villages. Very little cottage building has been done since agriculture was reduced to an almost ruinous condition in this country, and very little is likely to be done so long as the representatives of townspeople in Parliament oppose everything that is proposed for the benefit of the agricultural industry, however equitable it may
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