THE "QUARTERLY'S" BIG SUGGESTION.
PEOPLE—and there are a good many of them—who think that domestic politics are, as the Americans say, "welly played out," that there will speedily be nothing left for the parties to quarrel over, should read a paper in the new number of the Quartery Review, called "The Pro- letariat on a False Scent." They will there find, in that gravest and most solid of Conservative publications, two pro- posals advanced by a writer who is obviously no friend either to Socialism or Democracy, who loathes Trades' Unions, dis- believes peasant-proprietorship, and despises the "Social Alliance," which will, we imagine, cause them to doubt for five minutes at all events whether everything is quite settled and politics finally exhausted. One of them is that the extinction of the great mass of retail traders ought to be one of the first objects of the community, and more especially of the Proletariat ; and the other is that the population of Great Britain ought to be rehoused by the aid or through the direct agency of the State and the Municipalities. On the Reviewer's first suggestion we have little to say beyond this, that it is of very little use to prove, as he has done, the mere economic case. It may be very true—nay, it is true—that the excessive multiplication of retail traders and the still more ex- cessive subdivision of their functions causes immense loss to the labouring classes—who have, in fact, to maintain a hundred distributors where one would do,—and that "any contriv- ance or regulation (if that were possible) that should reduce the number of retailers by 50 or 70 per cent. would probably be the greatest practical and immediate boon to the working classes that could be devised," but the proposition is almost too abstract for discussion. The writer repudiates State in-
terference with the retailers ; and as any form of competition with them, through the intervention of great capitalists or combinations of little tradesmen to work large general stores —an experiment we should greatly like to see tried—or co- operation among the buyers, is already legal, we see nothing to which the politician can address himself. Parliament cannot limit the number of retail dealers in a district as it limits the number of public-houses, without the risk of an evil greater than the one now endured, that of investing monopolists with the power of charging any price they choose. If there are any legal impediments to combination or co-operation, the workmen have only to point them out to have them swept away, but beyond this there is as yet no case even for discussion.
The second proposal is far more serious, so large that it will take away the breath of many readers, and so definite that it can be dealt with almost as readily as if it were already formu- lated in a Bill. The Quarterly Reviewer asserts that the Pro- letariat of Great Britain is infamously lodged in houses or rooms lacking most of the requirements of health or civilization, too often far from the scene of labour, and usually in the cities unreasonably costly. That assertion, though very broad, and liable to some qualification as respects special localities, is in the main true. The fact is suspected by cottagers, is asserted by artizana, is admitted by the entire medical profession and the vast bulk of the clergy, and is not denied by anybody not interested in denying it. Taking it, therefore, as a fact, the Reviewer maintains that as it is clearly beyond the power of the Proletariat to secure a remedy for themselves, "they being unable to purchase sites, lay on water, secure good air, or provide drainage," it is the duty of the community to secure these things for them, or rather to secure to them the means of securing them. "It has been proved by some at least of the associations for the improvement of the dwellings of the metropolitan poor, that a steady dividend of five per cent. can be obtained under sound and business-like conditions of administration. There- fore, we say, no valid objection can be raised to the proposal that henceforth Parliament should grant powers to companies having such an object in view to purchase land and suitable sites in the heart of the metropolis, as readily and as amply as they have parted with them to railway companies. Nay, more : it is not easy to say why, if such companies were not forthcoming in sufficient numbers, or with sufficient capital to .meet the urgent necessities of the case, the State or the City, acting in the interest of the community, should not lend money to them at any rate of interest beyond that at which they can borrow it, plus an addition for the cost of manage- ment ; or on such terms as they have ere now and repeatedly loaned public funds to private proprietors, especially in Ireland, for drainage of estates and other improvements. We are not generally advocates for multiplying State action and interven- tion where it can be avoided ; but in a case like this we should not greatly object to some initiation, at least tentative and experimental, by the Government itself."
It will at once be seen, despite the artistic moderation of the writer's tone, that this is no less than a proposition for rehousing the English Proletariat through the agency of the State. Clearly, what is done for one city must be done for another ; and what is done for the townsmen must be done for the country-folk, whose case indeed the Reviewer pleads with even more sharpness than that of the artizans ; and the project must therefore be universal. We could not lend money to build houses for artizans, and leave the labourers without houses or sites for houses within distance of their work. Clearly, also, if cheap money lent by the State did not tempt companies to build, the State must build for itself, employing an army of architects, builders, and workmen, as it would if it were building barracks ; and clearly also there is a probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that the private builder would not be tempted even by cheap advances from the State. He would not get enough profit, or any. The QuarteqyReviewer says the Peabody Buildings yields per cent., and the difference between that and the interest of Govern- ment money might tempt a sufficiency of speculators ; but he forgets entirely that the moment we multiply the Peabody Buildings by, say one hundred thousand, the private owners will meet their competition by a tremendous fall of rents, a fall which will either attract the workmen back to the old houses, or compel the owners of the Peabody Buildings to lower their demands below the limit of profit. He does not propose, we presume, to destroy the old houses, or to fix a minimum of rent, or to decree that nobody shall live in them.
If he does, he is proposing something which would be de- nounced as confiscation ; and if he does not, the State will certainly, at one point or another of the experiment, have to do the work for itself,—have, in fact, either directly or through the municipality, to become the landlord of the people, and either draw rent or sell the houses at a losing price. We do not know that we should shrink after
experiment from the former process. If the municipality of Huddersfield owned Huddersfield instead of Sir John Ramsden, Huddersfield might be a much happier place, and it is difficult for men acquainted with our re'gime in India to believe all the clamour about the dangers involved in a State demand for rent. If the people approve the system, there are no particular dangers connected with it, any more than with a demand for titles or licence fees, the latter of which, like rent, are practically levied under a penalty of eviction. But it is clear that if such a result is even possible the project assumes at once colossal proportions, involves enormous fines on all owners of existing house property, entirely new relations between the body of the people and the State, and loans of the most gigantic magnitude. Supposing that a family can be nicely housed for £200, it would cost £800,000,000 to rehouse the English Proletariat families on the Peabody plan, so that every working-man should be within a mile of his work. We are not Tories, but Liberals, or, if you will, Radicals ; but we confess ourselves a little aghast at the thought of so stupendous an undertaking, which yet we do not see how to reduce in size. We cannot pick and choose among cities, say Londoners shall. be civilized while the people of Glasgow live like pigs, reform Norwich and leave Burslem a collection of hovels ; nor can we go to work gradually, and comfort the fathers of Bristol out of State money, while proposing to comfort only the sons of Liverpool and the grandchildren of Manchester. The thing must be done on the big scale, if it is done at all, and we con- fess the scale alarms us.
But the Reviewer may say there is no necessity for the State to do more than build, or cause to be built, as many houses as will by competition compel the private owners to. comply with the conditions of health and civilization. That looks sound, but it may need a little examination. It is not true, to begin with, of country parishes. If the municipality of Greenfield-cum-Oatlands finds that area has insufficient cottages, and builds a row of Peabody Buildings, and the labourers like them, what will happen ? The squire will first swear about possible increase to rates, and then pull his cottages down, first as a costly bur- den, and secondly as threatening to make the Peabody Buildings unprofitable and a burden on the rates, and so the Municipality will be left sole landlord. That seems a rather large result to face at a moment's notice. On the other hand, the effect of extensive State buildings in towns, if carried far enough to create severe competition, will be to make new buildings unprofitable, and so leave landlordism for the future to the Town Council or the State. For we take it as proved that no improvements in houses built on the separate system will enable them to compete, both in price and quality, with houses on the block system ; so that the proprietor must either ask more for his improved house, or take less for his old-fashioned affair. In the first case he will not get tenants, and in the second his houses will not pay, and he will build no more.
We go a great way with the Quarterly Reviewer even as to his methods, and heartily sympathize in his object ; but we suspect he will find it needful in a country like this to proceed without calling on the State for direct action. We can liberate sites by enabling builders for the poor to take them at a valua- tion, though even then the compensation may be terrible, the neighbourhood of a workman's colony, say to Portman Square, forcing down rents to an extent greater than the direct value of the site expropriated. We may pass an Act like one which exists, we believe, in Melbourne, forcing every owner to observe rules laid down for the benefit of his tenants under penalty of the immediate condemnation and destruction of his property, though even then capital will be apt to avoid pro- perty so hampered. And we may carry out the Lodging- House Act and the Health Acts in such style that the condi- tions of civilization shall be secured, though then, we greatly fear, the poor who cannot pay the cost of good water, air, and drainage will be shovelled wholesale into the streets. But how we are to go farther than that without making the Municipalities the universal landlords of the poor we do not see, and that will, we repeat, be a very big thing indeed.
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