Mr. Neville Chamberlain's speech on housing at Plymouth on Monday
not only showed statesman- ship and common sense, but a deep sense of the terrible evils of the house famine. After a well- deserved eulogy of Mr. Clynes and Mr. Frank Hodges for their courageous utterances under very difficult circumstances, Mr. Chamberlain insisted that there was no more potent source of unrest and discontent among working people than "the abomin- able housing conditions under which so many were forced to live." We congratulate Mr. Chamberlain most heartily.- for the courageousness of his- utterance—quite as great as that which he praises in the Labour leaders. The usual official way is to.minimize troubles and to put as good a case as you can in defence of the status quo. At the same time, Mr-Chamberlain pointed out, as he had a right to -do, that, though there is so much to be done, we are at last beginning a little to reduce our arrears.
" Bat can we afford to wait for another ten or twenty years keeping decent people in- these overcrowded conditions,..enduring.all this misery and discomfort, injuring their health, and prejudicing the welfare of their children ? For my part, I am not prepared to_ take the responsibility of sitting still.'
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