[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—The Building Societies' scheme to encourage their members to make improvements on their property in the interests of employment, to which Major Nathan, M.P., calls attention in your columns, is excellent so far as it goes.
Will property owners who are not associated with Building Societies follow it up ? In London alone there is work for thousands in the re-conditioning of property too good to be pulled down and rebuilt, but hopelessly out of date according to modern standards. Take such a simple convenience as running hot water. How many hotels, boarding houses and blocks of flats are still without it ? The vast majority, if my experience is anything to go by.
It is perhaps too much to suggest that all houses should be equipped with the labour-saving devices the housewife in the United States enjoys, but life would be made much easier if a few of the improvements discovered over the past twenty years could be put into operation. And the increased rents which would gladly be paid would ensure a satisfactory return on the money spent on them.—I am, Sir, &c., 20 Queen Street, Hammersmith, W.0, H. A. MarnEn.
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