[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Stn,--I have read with
great interest the two recent articles in your paper dealing with slum clearance in London, by Mr. A. C. Bossom. Having some acquaintance with this subject, I should be glad if you will permit me to make a few remarks thereon.
Mr. Bossom has done a public service in drawing attention to a practical method of eliminating these slums within a reasonably short period. The method he proposes has been used elsewhere and presents no architectural difficulties. In fact it seems so easy that one wonders why it has not been suggested before. To construct tenement house's over the open spaces provided by " sunken railivay tracks " for the purpose of creating immediately ." shim clearance areas " is a solution which should command great support. I hope, indeed, that his proposals will receive the most careful consideration by the London County Council and other authorities who are concerned with thii serious problem.
Mr. Bernard Sha* in his observations at the end of the second article suggests that the " Railway Companies will open their mouths pretty wide when Mr. Bossom comes into the market." They will no doubt demand compensation for surrendering their overhead " open spaces," but whether you utilize these open spaces or whether you convert into piles of flats the little mean houses of two storeys" referred to by Mr. Shaw, reasonable payments would in- either case have to be made ; and I cannot conceive that the one will he more expensive than the other. In any case Mr. Bossom's proposals will dislocate fewer people, because if you destroy good existing houses, it will mean the rehousing of those displaced as well as the rehousing of the slum dwellers. This would involve also litigation and delay and probably much additional cost.
Mr. Shaw further suggests that it would not be the slum dweller who would remove into the new tenements but other people of a more prosperous class who would vacate their own lodgings and crowd into the new buildings. This, of course, should be obviated if the local authorities did their work properly, because, so far as I can judge of the scheme, they would have control of it in all its details and they would no doubt only allow slum dwellers to take advantage of it.
I cannot help feeling that Mr. Bernard Shaw has criticized this scheme not from the point of view as to whether it is practical or not, but from the standpoint of using it as an instrument for advancing the theoretical objects of the Fabian Society.
I understand that the Minister of Health has recently requested a quinquennial programme of sluni clearance from local authorities. The scheme proposed by Mr. Bossom for London should be capable of accomplishment, if hiS figures are correct; at a greater speed and within two quin- quennial periods and at probably about the same cost. If this is so his scheme should appeal to both ratepayers and the railway companies ; but those who would gain most would be the unfortunate slum dwellers whom we all wish to
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