THE ROOT OF SOCIAL REFORM.
[TO THE EDITOR or THE " EPECTATOR."]
Sts,—In your last issue "L. W." writes that if certain suggestions of his are carried out the housing problem will be solved, by individual local enterprise. His suggestions were right as far as they went, but they did not go far enough. Having a large experience in town housing and of the effects of the housing legis- lation of the last ten years, I am convinced that unless that • legislation is almost entirely repealed private enterprise will remain dormant. That legislation has carried out the policy of compelling landlords to do this, that, and the other, of cloning thousands and thousands of houses that are not kept up to an impossible standard, of depriving owners of en appeal to any Court of Law on the question whether they are up to that standard, of taking imaginary increments and builders' Profits, of preventing a reasonable rise of rent during the war to cover the increased cost of repairs and of living, and of formulating town-planning schemes under which no houses for the poorer labouring classes can possibly be erected. House owners and builders are blamed for lack of enterprise, whilst enterprise has been killed by our legislators and housing reformers. The real culprits are those who not only do not build, but destroy and positively prevent building by injuring investments and dictating impossible conditions. Until this unjust and most unwise legisla- tion is repealed, private enterprise will stay its hand. But the taste for bricks and mortar investments is hard to kill outright. With its old freedom and security restored, it would after the war very quickly make good the present terrible deficiency of houses without financial assistance from the Government. If this were done at once, house-building schemes on a large scale would imme- diately be in preparation; otherwise it will be left almost entirely to the Government and the Municipalities, who have plenty of other work to do, and would only provide houses of a very stereo- typed and very expensive pattern.—I am, Sir, Ac.,
lioessowrent. [The Model By-Laws of the Local Government Board are a reasonable and fairly up-to-date set of rules for governing the erection of new houses. It would be a great gain if they could replace the more backward rules of some local bodies.—Ea. Spectator.]
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