[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your issue of November 10th Captain Townroe makes the admission that the incorrigible slum makers, who loom so largely in his book, are not numerous after all. Mrs. Barclay's protest has had the useful effect of eliciting from him the statement that " the feckless class " is in a minority of from 2 per cent. to 10 per cent.
Most of us who join issue with Captain Townroe would probably accept that estimate as being a fair one. We do not deny that there is a small minority who make bad tenants and for whom special measures are necessary, but, unlike Captain Townroe, we are more concerned with the remaining 90 per cent. to 98 per cent. of decent people at present housed in slums from which they must be saved at all cost. Those who would try to solve the housing problem must see it whole and not be unduly obsessed with one small difficult aspect of it.
An educationist who based his theories and recommendations on the small percentage of dunces which undeniably exists would be considered a very unbalanced person. Captain Townroe's unfortunate emphasis in his book on the minority of bad tenants, which he now admits to be no larger than from 2 per cent. to 10 per cent., is doing the cause of housing reform a very grave disservice, because he is playing into the hands of those who want an excuse for inaction and find it in the belief that the slum dweller is beyond redemption.
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