The Slums of Westminster II
ALTHOUGH there are worse districts in London than the Victoria Ward of Westminster, this slum is in the richest borough in London, with a rateable value of between £9,000,000 and £10,000,000, and is therefore a dramatic instance of the old saying that one half of the world does not know how the other half lives, and an instance, mor-over, where publicity can achieve, and indeed is already producing, a most salutary stirring of the civic conscience.
Following our article on this subject last week, a further statement on the housing conditions in Victoria Ward appears advisable, for public feeling has been aroused by the disgraceful state of affairs in the very heart of the Empire. Now is the moment for reform on a comprehensive scale.
The question of slum clearance cannot, of course, be considered in Victoria Ward alone, or even in the whole fourteen wards of Westminster. The need for comprehen- sive treatment is as urgent as is the need for drastic action. Both are vital, if dishoused workers are not to congest new areas and turn them into slums, but it is by no means impossible to combine caution as regards areas to be cleared with courage in getting the work done—and done while public opinion is in no mood to pay overmuch attention to the excellent reasons which can always be produced for any policy of inaction.
It would be easy to point out that there are slums rottener and more pestilential than parts of Victoria Ward. But the fact that in this City of ours there is a house in Aylesford Street (we forbear to mention the number only for the sake of the tenants) where fifteen people (including five children over fourteen) are living in three small rooms in a miserable state of squalor, is not made any less painful by saying that the conditions in Shoreditch may be as bad or worse. In point of fact, the conditions in the East End of London are no worse than in the bad slum areas in the West, although the East And slums are much more extensive. The present writer has compared parts of Pulford Street, Ranelagh Road and Aylesford Street with slum areas in Limehouse, Canning Town and Poplar. There is little to choose, but there seems more gaiety in dockland and the children look healthier as well as happier. Such isolated personal observations are doubtless of small value, but the following health figures for various parts of Westminster speak for themselves :— The mortality for the two wards of St. John's and Victoria in 1925 was 990 ; in the other twelve wards of Westminster it was 699. The numbers of cases of tuber- culosis, diphtheria and scarlet fever in the two above- mentioned wards in 1925 were 489, 450, and 356 re- spectively ; while in the other twelve wards the figures were 294, 161, 213. The two wards above-mentioned are, indeed, the biggest in the borough, but the fact remains that the incidence of disease and death in them is far too heavy. No one can exactly gauge the cost in human life and in money of these slums.
Dare we leave this part of Westminster alone while children are being born in such death traps ? Should we widen Berkeley Street for our motor-cars at a cost of £31,800 while men and women huddle in airless base- ments in another part of the borough ? True, many groups of citizens are devoting both time and money to the betterment of the conditions of the London poor. The Westminster Housing Association and the West- minster Survey Group are emulating the good work which has been done by the Chelsea Housing Associa- tion, and in Kennington, Marylebone and other districts. But although much has been done, much remains to do, for there is half a century of stupidity and sloth to combat.
The dead weight of inertia is a formidable obstacle to progress, as are the vested interests of landlords and leaseholders, who have considerable voting power as well as obvious rights in the matter. Finally there is the lack of care on the part of tenants, some of whom (but we know from unimpeachable sources that they are a minority) quickly depreciate the value of houses they inhabit. Let us make our own position clear. We urge no sentimental Socialist argument that the improvident must be supported from the rates. Westminster rate- payers cannot be expected to support an unlimited number of persons unable to pay the economic rent of the neighbourhood. Some system of control may have to be exercised as to who should and who should not live in rate-aided accommodation. This said, we repeat that the slums of Westminster are a national scandal and must be abolished. Yet to turn out the present dwellers without giving them adequate accommodation in the neighbour- hood would be as inhuman as it would be idiotic, for reasons too obvious to enumerate. We cannot, even if we would (Heaven forbid it !), make the whole of this ward into a " rich " quarter. The human consideration over- rides every other. We must clear up these pigsties that are next door to our palaces, and that quickly, although not hurriedly.
' In this connexion we would combat the widely held opinion that the resettlement of dishoused people under hygienic conditions is a matter of immense difficulty. It is difficult in the sense that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, but such re- settlement can be and has been accomplished in many places in England, and could be done again on a large scale in Westminster. When the will is there, the means can be found. In Liverpool 25,000 slum dwellers have been housed and 941 per cent. of them provided with modern accommodation. In Somers Town the same kind of reform has been carried out on a smaller scale but with no less satisfactory results. In Westminster it would be possible to provide for 700 families at an increase of only one penny on the rates.
The chief difficulty in clearing our slum areas lies in the economic gap between what poor tenants can afford to pay for decent accommodation and what that accom- modation costs to provide. It is said that this gap approximates to £50 per annum per house. Now a penny rate in Westminster yields £86,480 according to the latest estimate. Therefore, 730 houses could be remodelled and financed for such a small increase in an immensely rich borough. This estimate is probably too conservative and does not take into account the saving in health relief which would undoubtedly accrue, nor does it allow for the incalculable general benefits arising from better living conditions.
Yet it is on these incalculable general benefits that we base our strongest argument for action. A large number of poor people, caretakers, cleaners, and railway workers, must live close to their work in Westminster. Common sense demands that they should be decently housed. These people must remain, but their children must not remain in dark basements ; the lice and bugs and sewer- rats must not remain.
We are all responsible for the slums of England. We shall not find our way out of them by a bickering between the boroughs of London, nor by attributing the blame to careless tenants, nor to grasping landlords, nor to the existing social order. If we once admit that we are all wrong, then we can at least examine the question without passion and prejudice. What is to be done now ?
First and foremost, and at whatever cost, must come the determination to rid ourselves of these horrible and verminous dens, and ancillary to this resolve must come the provision and control of modern accommodation for a number of poor people, so that such a state of affairs can never recur. It should be—and certainly will be if names arc published—as difficult for owners of slum property to maintain their self-respect as it is for their tenants to keep a bold front to the world.
The tenants are doing their best (the majority of them) to keep their houses well. Are the landlords and the leaseholders doing their best also ? And is the City Council doing its duty ? Under the Act of 1925 it has full power to deal with and remedy the unhappy con- ditions which exist. Why does it not act ? Why does it let children die who might live ?
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