The Ministry's View
But it is really good to see this urgent country problem taken up not only by an influential countryman, but realised also by the Ministry of Health. " Considerable improvement must be made in the standard of their (i.e., country workers') housing," says the Ministry. The words have the bureau- cratic sobriety you would expect from a Government report, but they combat the fatuity of a speaker, quoted by The Countryman, who declared " that rural housing was a ' fashion ' which would be better `in their private hands,' if not, indeed, ' postponed '." This attitude is not only fatuous but dan- gerous. If workers are to be kept on the land, and kept happily on it, they must be allowed the privilege of a decent standard of housing. Happily the Ministry realises this, and I hope local administrators will realise it and act wisely under the new legislation, which " gives us in the country," to quote The Countryman finally, " the power we need to act upon the basis of our knowledge and experience."
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