How to Get the Houses
SIR.-1 arn in complete agreement with the views set out by Mr. Robert G. Tatiran in the Spectator of January 12th., The housing problem of Britain must be solved by employing some Napoleonic methods. The need is for houses—houses--houses. They must be built as quickly as possible, and every drop of skill and ingenuity available in the country must be used.
As a medical man this point is brought home to me very forcibly every day. The cost in life, disease and production to the nation as a result of the present lamentable lack of proper housing is staggering. The children suffer now and arc possibly sowing the seeds of life-long ill-health because they are forced to breathe and exist in overcrowded and insani- tary rooms. Working men and women similarly suffer a very substantial reduction in their health and labour-power, and as a result both they and the country, which is crying out for maximum productivity, are caused irreparable loss.
It is useless to spend £400-£500m. a year, as we do, on public health, if we do not strike at the root cause of public ill-health, which is lack of proper housing. The money spent on building decent houses by every possible method would quickly mean a substantial reduction in our expenditure on health services. It will have to be spent sooner or later on housing, but the longer It is left the more difficult will it become to restore the bodies of millions of men and women now doomed to live under cramped, confined and often insanitary conditions. Houses must be built at a rate at least double that of today.
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