WIGWAMS.* (Commustuoran.)

" A Kay to Social Reform "—this is the sub-title of an earnest little book by Mr. Watkin Williams which it has pleased him to call Wigwam. That Sir James Crichton-Browne once said s " We must recognize the right of every civilized man to a clean wigwam " is the extenuating cireumstanoe which the author pleads for this fanciful title. When, in the fulness of time, Sir James ha. become securely established as a classic and the leant epigrammatic of his diets have become to us as proverbs, then, and then only, will Wigwam instantly convey" working-olaas housing" to our minds. Meanwhile the book is in danger of being ordered by those in search of Red Indian romance. for lower-school boys, or a likely libretto for " a new and original " muss. And all the time it. is really a desperately serious treatise on a desperately serious subject.

This said—that a valuable and illuminating light has been rather capriciously hidden under a rod-herring—it must be admitted that Mr Williams really does offer us a key to Social Reform. With considerable confidence, indeed, he commends It to us in his trenchant text as the key. Social Reform, however, has a great many intricate looks of Infinite delicacy, and if his particular key is even a rough casting of one • of the many that must turn in their protesting wards before wt go far on the diffi- cult path of real reform, then is he a very cunning locksmith with all humanity in his debt. Briefly his thesis is this, that the building of " homes for happy human beings " has been hampered, strangled, and finally well-nigh killed by the unfair incidence of rates and taxes. Only give builders and would-be builders a fair oh snots of reaping where they have sown, he says in effect, and they will sow houses broadcast and make State enterprise superfluous. Even if such an unregulated crop were desirable, we are probably much too far behind in this matter to catch up by any other means than State-managed cultivation with the help of all the very latest and best high-powered machinery. Certainly we must have the most favourable conditions obtainable, but then we must see to it that we only use good seed—reasonable design and decent, unoffensive architecture. "Favourable conditions" bring up weeds factor than anything else if sowing has been careless or super- vision lax.

Be that as It may, the author does make out a seemingly un- answerable case for the reform of the rating and taxation of build- ings, as a first step towards a solution of the Housing Problem. On his showing, the problem is very largely artificial and gratuitous, the legacy of past economics 'lubricant. and injustices. That these injuries of the past are tragically intensified in the present is what goads this builders' champion into his vehement denunciation of the Government's policy, or rather lack of policy. " The Tories chastised you with whips, but we Liberals will chastise you with scorpion," is about what the sorry story amounts to for all the world as though the building of homes wore a dangerous and anti-social pranks:, to be discouraged and repressed by the State with all its marvellous and sinister genius for discouragement and repression 1 Assuredly Mr. Williams suoceerbi in shaking one's cherished belief in the rough equity and sanity of our laws. His indictment of local taxation veritably makes the flesh creep, and it has all the additional dreadfulness of " a true ghost story," for extracts from Acts of Parliament and Royal Commission Reports and statistical tables and such-like point damning fingers at the present and all past Governments from every pregnant page. Some idea of the objective of hi.S. Williams's campaign is given by the following quotations :-

" If a man vends £230 in building a cottage in the parish, more than half of his capital is confiscated by local rates ; hence a prudent person will not invest in building."

" Emerson says Corn will not grow unless it is planted and manured • but the farmer will not plant or hoe it unless the chance. are a hundred to one that he will out and harvest it.' Here we have the Housing Problem in a nutehell."

" If rates are high in the the tendency is to increase the ratable values to hide the high rates as much as possible. This tendency has been on the increase throughout the country."

" Capital invested in buildings becomes immobile. Building should be encouraged by the State in the interest of the State. The capitalist or investor will not invest his money if there is no profit.'

" The farmer and the builder alike, in making their bargains with the owner of the land which they wish to take on lease, make their calculations with a view to profit. They know more or lees at what price they may, on an average, expect to sell their produce ; they compare that with the cost of production and all outgoings and charges ; they must make a certain profit to induce them to enter on the business at all, Re."

" If in all national and onerous services the cost borne by the Central Government were controlled and administered by the State, an enormous saving, leas labour, lees friction, and greater efficiency would result. The only objections would be from those who have their special interest to serve."

" The question therefore arises whether the flexibility, astuteness,

• Wimeme Key to Social Reform. By Wattle Williams. Canliff Tho Educational Publishing Co. Ile. non'

and energy of private enterprise cannot be combined with such guarantees for the safety of invested capital, as a corporate body can offer, Ice."

" On one point certainly all reformers will be agreed, viz., that if an adequate supply of houses is to be ensured, the public authori- ties must provide them, if other agencies fail."

" Why did not they recommend that the onuses of the failure of the supply should be removed ? Those causes are easily aeon, viz., rates and taxes, national service and onerous services that should be borne on the broader back of the national taxpayer. Besides, it would be politic to encourage the small investor, the middle and working classes, to save and invoet in cottages and houses for their own occupation and investments."

" If there is any industry in the land that should be fostered for the sake of a people as a whole, it is building, if only for the sake of the comfort and health of the people. Nay, more, the tone and standard of a nation is raised more by the influence of good buildings and architecture than by any other moans, except Christianity."

" In our day, and for some generations past, as a nation our race have been after things that matter much less. In our ignorance we have as if determined (to all appearance)—done our very worst —to discourage good building and architecture, by rating and taxing it, as if it were a great evil."

`• If a shopkeeper rents or takes a fine building to conduct his business, he is punished by being rated higher or taxed higher than his neighbour, who conducts his business in an inferior building."

" If a cottager improves his dwelling, and if ho puts a bath into his house, he is taxed the more for it than would be his lees clean and tidy neighbour cottager. This is what it all amounts to according to our present day doings. Taxing improvements and encouraging bad building."