THE HOUSING PROBLEM
[To the Editor of the Sracra.roa.] Sig,—Your admirable articles on the Housing Problem in recent issues of the Spectator bring home so forcibly the terrible condition of our slums, and are of such national importance, that I feel that they should have a far wider circulation than is possible when restricted only to readers of your paper—numerous though they may be.
The whole subject is so vital, from the moral, physical, and national point of view, that nothing short of a campaign on. national lines and with the whole-hearted support of the nation can give effect to any real improvement. . - Would it not be possible .to enlist the aid of all the daily and weekly newspapers- of the country to organize a united Rehousing Scheme Campaign—say for the duration of a week—setting forth the full horror and disgrace of the present conditions and appealing to the universal responsibility, and asking for the united help of all classes of the community to remedy this state of affairs by general financial support to whatever proposals were put forward, either by the Ministry of Health or Government,' as the case may be, to raise a Funding Loan, such as you propose, for the purpose ?
The whole subject requires ventilating until the conscience of the nation as a whole is aroused and fired with the deter- mination to take action to blot out from our midst this disgrace to civilization.
Once the true state of affairs is grasped, I cannot doubt that the funds required for this immense scheme to reconstruct the sluuns of England will be forthcoming. Thousands of small, not to mention large, capitalists, who annually, more often for amusement than necessity, speculate regularly on the Stock Exchange, would surely sacrifice the profits they now make and be content for a time to take a low rate of . interest and invest their money instead in a National Housing Scheme Loan, if it were possible thereby to achieve a thorough overhaul of our housing in the overcrowded districts. The realization that they had given tens of thousands of their fellow countrymen the, opportunity to live clean decent lives and bring up healthy, normal citizens for the next generation (instead of the helpless C3 unemployables who are now created by the terrible conditions under which so many exist in practically every big. city of this country) would surely be sufficient compensation for the temporary loss they .would suffer.
Can any self-respecting Christian, once fully aware of the real state pf English Housing, rest content to do nothing and to see money spent on luxuries right and left throughont the land, leaving this festering-sore unattended-? It is every- one's duty to take their share to the best of their -ability, and only by one huge, united effort and great self-sacrifice on the part of all classes can it be done.
No complaint of ignorance can any longer be allowed to excuse us as a nation. We must see that the present-con- ditions are remedied without delay. • There was no limit to what we as individuals, or as a -nation, did during the War. Let us see whether we cannot once again rise to the occasion and sweep from our midst this stain on the face of our country;
Ford Castle, Berznick-on-Tweed.
VERE BERTIE.
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