Solving the Slum Problem
AKIND of fog descends on the mind of the average man who attempts to consider the conditions under which our poor live, through which eugenics, politics, industry, density of population, definitioni, statistics, transport problems, town planning, and ethics show glimmering but uncertain lights towards a better future. It seems very difficult to move in this fog. It seems also that some wise people are groping their way forward boldly enough, and that the slums will eventually disappear if the politicians and Local Author- ities go on at their present rate.
This is a delusion, for although one million and fifty thousand houses have been built, we are still only at the very edge of the problem. The filth and misery of a part of our people, and the courage with which they bear such evils, are astonishing. The facts emerge, indeed, with staggering force to anyone who sees the slums for himself with fresh and unprejudiced eyes. Talk of progress cannot blind any one of our readers to what still exists in hundreds of thousands of homes—some of them certainly not far from his own or her own happier surroundings—if they care to investi- gate for themselves. The attitude of the Dominion Press on the recent floods, for instance, should give us pause " It is not that people were drowned in basements," runs one comment, " but that there were people in basements to drown, which is a matter of surprise to us." Here in a nutshell is the view of the younger nations. Canadians and Australians returning to London, if theY explore parts of Westminster, Fulham, Chelsea, or indeed any other borough in London, will learn with real horror of the rat-ridden basements and squalid streets existing in our Imperial capital. So will any other reader of the Spectator who has not yet seen the slums.
We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into an easy faith that new houses are a matter of supply and demand, to be solved by the mythical creatures of the Mill fallacy. The slum dwellers are not " economic men and women " —most of them—and will not endure their present conditions indefinitely. Nor can they be brought to believe that it is their fault that they are overcrowded. They ask our help ; unless they receive it, they will turn to Communism, which already finds its best breeding-ground in the slums.
Granted that good work has been done by private enterprise, we see no reason for self-complacency. True it is that from all parts of England instances can be adduced of efficient management which have converted bad property into good, and of housing associations which are doing useful work. Moreover, there is a general feeling amongst educated people that this slum question must be solved within the next decade at no matter what cost, for no cost can be calculated against the iniquities towards children and the miseries of their parents which exist in our country to-day. But the need for a comprehensive treatment of the whole subject is urgent. The results up to date of the endeavours of Local Authorities and of private schemes, while laudable in many instances, are pitifully small compared to the present need. Something of the war spirit is needed, if we are to have the Merry England that is within our reach. We must co-operate, to win 'this war for sunlight and cleanliness and comfort. Self-sacrifice, talent, energy, are at the service of the State, yet we are recruiting our fighting forces by the methods that raised the South African Army. We are no enthusiasts for State interference in private affairs, but a war can only be waged by the State, and the slums are a matter kir the State, a national evil that only the national resources can conquer. For victory, we need a well-laid plan of attack.
The problem is, where to attack ? No one who has read the remarkable series of articles which Mr. Eldon Moore concluded in our columns last week can fail to agree that some paupers are born, as well as made by adverse circumstances, and that some slums are created by their tenants. If our forty million population consisted of super-men and super-women, would poverty cease ? If so, could we breed out the poor strains ? We will offer no opinion. Eugenic remedies are beset with many real difficulties and even more emotional prejudice.. But there are certain practical aspects of the present congestion where our duty lies plain. First we must house our people decently; then, possibly or conceivably, consider their procreation. It is useless to tell Mrs. Smith to-day that she should not have had six " M.D." children. They are there—a liability on us all. Whatever our hopes or fears along biological lines, our need at the moment is for more houses (over 800,000 families still have but one room apiece), cleaner living conditions (some 3,000,000 of us still exist in squalor), and intelligent town planning. Whosoever is at fault, the poor are with us now and we must better the way they live, for our own sakes as well as theirs.
While girls of fourteen become mothers owing• to promiscuous overcrowding, while bugs and lice batten on poor children, while in Westminster alone there are more than six thousand basements used as living rooms, we must continue to bring the question of housing before the public at every opportunity, in an endeavour to lift it once and for all outside its technical aspects and present the overwhelmingly-important human side.
Only by viewing the problem as a whole can we hope to solve it. In some parts of London, for instance, an arterial road driven through a slum district would increase the site values created on its frontages to an extent that would more than pay for the cost of reconditioning the whole area : yet how can such a road be made without reference to some central authority ? Again, in other boroughs (Westminster for instance), if by some magic new accommodation were to arise to-morrow for every victim of overcrowding, immediately a fresh influx of the destitute or the improvident would pour into the vacated slums. And who is to check such a movement ? England is a free country, and it is difficult to prevent people living where they like : difficult, but not impossible, of course, for if there was decent accommodation for all within reasonable distance of their work, public opinion would enforce a. different standard in our bad areas. That such accommodation does not at present exist is not the fault of the Housing Authorities in Westminster, negligent as they have been of their duties in the past.
With proper organization and with Local Authorities who would be able to use the powers which already are theirs by law (but which go by default owing to lack of houses), it would be possible to prevent overcrowding, and to sit heavily on the heads of those Bumbles who might still continue to believe that the poor are hopeless and must be allowed to huddle together in misery. To such we would say, in parenthesis, that if there are human beings who are born useless and foredoomed to misery on earth (it may be so) common sense joins with Christianity in pointing out our duty to provide for them —possibly in separate eommunities. Certainly it is idiotic to fold our hands and let such people go from bad to worse and permeate good families with their wretchedness.
Mr. Baldwin has refused his assent to a Royal Com- mission to inquire into the problem of Housing. So be it. Royal Commissions are not much to our liking, and the present Minister of Health has a record of work well done in the face of difficulties. Let the Government put housing in the forefront of its programme and give Mr. Neville Chamberlain a free hand. Let us have a nation-wide Conservative housing policy. Let us grasp this nettle with no uncertain hand What the Magdalen Mission have accomplished, what private enterprise has achieved for various slum areas, what Sir Tudor Walters has done in building 12,000 houses for miners and letting them at economic rents, can be repeated on a larger scale and on an even more economic basis.
We favour no bureaucratic or Socialistic scheme involving an army of State servants, without vision or responsibility, nor a long compilation of statistics to ascertain the minutiae of costs. If some one of experience, such as Sir Tudor Walters, were given the money to put things right, we have not the slightest doubt he could do it on a paying basis over a limited number of years. National rehousing on the scale we contemplate will certainly be expensive, but the longer we defer it the more we shall have to pay in the end. Moreover, the expenditure would be of the most productive kind, directly and indirectly, immediately and for the rising generation. To-day is not too soon to bring the children of England out of the darkness in which so many live. Why not make a clean sweep of all the warrens that disgrace us ? If we say it is not possible, it will be for one reason only : that we have not the vision to plan aright. Where there is no vision, the people perish ; but already England has seen the horizon of a new way of life. The Press leaves us in no doubt on that point.
More houses must be built. Better roads and com- munications must be made. Insanitary areas must be torn down and rebuilt, justice being done to landlords, without, however, allowing the predominant interest of society in cleaning up these plague-spots to suffer for the benefit of the owners of freeholds and leases. Local Authorities must be kept up to their duty of seeing that overcrowding does not occur in their area. None of these things is impossible of achievement. All, indeed, are already in process of fulfilment, but how slowly, haphazardly, clumsily, compared to what might be achieved under unified control ! What a weight of woe attends removals, readjustments, uncertainties, wrangles between rate-payers, landlords, social reformers, health and Local Authorities 1 We need a single re- sponsibility, co-ordinating and controlling the manifold activities of a complete rehousing scheme, and the huge labour turnover which such a plan would entail if carried out on the grand scale which would also be the economic and popular scale.
We have already advocated a National Rehousing Loan—a sum of say £1,000,000,000 for slum clearance, rebuilding and reconditioning of those places which are not beyond redemption. We have said that for a fraction of the sum which we raised during the War to blow into the air, we could beautify all England. The need is urgent and the cause one of importance to the Conser- vative Party, for the nation is now alive to this disease that is sapping our health and strength. Ask the voters in any industrial area what they feel on the question— their answer will show how the tide is rising and will soon flood out the dotards and do-nothings who believe that part of the English people must always live in misery.
Our housing situation demands drastic remedies. The congestion is too intense, the fever is too high to permit the patient to cure himself. Palliatives may be and are being applied. But the real remedy must be sought by those who can see the problem as a whole and have the skill, the courage, and the means to act effectively. There must be a cutting away, a binding together, and a period of convalescence for some three million of us who are in great tribulation. A surgical operation cannot be done by a committee, nor left to amateurs, however well intentioned. Mr. Neville Chamberlain must be given power to act. England will trust him. If he fails, or dare not face the task, some stronger man will arise. People who live in hovels cannot be expected to wait for a generation or two while we argue the details of their malady. They will ask for the Red surgeon, and if he spreads ruin, we shall have only ourselves to blame,
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