In the House of Commons on Monday Lord Robert Cecil
called attention to the condition of the workmen engaged on the naval works at Rosyth. There had been gross neglect of a body of three thousand six hundred men, with their families numbering altogether about six thousand persons. In 1911 the Government were very anxious to have a town-planning scheme at Rosyth, and issued a notice saying in effect that any one building in the district whose house was found subse- quently to interfere with the town-planning scheme would be liable to have the house removed without compensation. That put a complete stopper on private enterprise. Yet no town- planning scheme had been produced. The contractor had housed nine hundred men, besides women and children. In 1913 the Government contracted for further works, and even then made no provision for housing. There was a case of overcrowding in which one room in a two-roomed house was occupied by seven lodgers, and the other room by a man and wife and four children.
