The housing question is of such great interest and importance
that we must call attention to a useful Digest of the Report of the Royal Commission on Housing in Scotland, by Mr. W. E. Whyte (Edin- burgh : Hodge ; 2s. 6d. net). The conditions in Scotland arc in some respects worse than in England and Wales, for 47.7 per cent. of the population live in " houses "—often what we call flats or workmen's dwellings—of one or two rooms, while the corresponding figure is 7.1 per cent. for Englana and Wales. The miners' houses are particularly bad. The Commission reported that 57,669 " houses " were absolutely uninhabitable and must be replaced, and that an almost equal number were required to abolish over- crowding—a term applied to " houses " in which there are more than three persons to a room. The Commission agreed in the main as to the facts, and differed only as to the extent to which Local Authorities should be made responsible for the erection of the many thousands of new houses that will be required after the war.
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