Politics in the Bathroom
SIR,—Your correspondent, Mr. Paul Sheridan, presents art interesting variation of the old adage about leading a horse to the water. Apparently you can also lead water to a house without inducing the pipeless and tapless house-owner to take advantage of the facilities offered to him. May not this be in large part due to the incidence of the fantastically inequitable Rent Restriction Acts ? If an owner spends £250—or whatever it may be—on service pipes, sewerage, and ' plumbing, he presumably increases the value of his property by that amount. But he is not only debarred from increasing the rent, but has no prospect of being able to recover his capital outlay from a purchaser until the sitting tenant chooses in his own time to vacate the premises.
Even if a future Socialist Government were' to introduce its nationalised-regionalised, and correspondingly costly, water supply system, it could have no power to compel either the tenant or the landlord to pay for his piping and plumbing and the annual water rate in addition. Or does the Labour Party's plan contemplate imposing this burden, too, on the shoulders of the taxpayer ?—Yours
Previous page
