653 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



more permanently attained on some sounder lines ? We have adopted a similar 

 method with regard to the present high price of bread, and a shilling loaf was 

 promised for ninepence. If doles and sops are to be our policy, we may be certain 

 that, like dry rot in a building, it will spread until there is not a sound plank or 

 board left. We are already reaping the natural consequences of the Bolshevik 

 views now being promulgated in our midst. The workman is being encouraged 

 to think that he can get more out of Government by strikes and disturbances than 

 he can out of his own labour by steady industry. He has taken up the Bolshevik 

 shout to Governments, " Do as we want, and mighty quick too, or we'll down and 

 out you." The appetite will grow with what it feeds on until, gorged and repleted, 

 it has killed by disease its pampered victim. 



What is the position with regard to housing to-day, and what should be the 

 remedy for the present scarcity of houses ? House builders and property owners 

 must be freed from limitations that choke their enterprises. On the one hand, 

 whilst we have rightly imposed many rules and regulations required by health, 

 and whilst these must remain, it is equally ceitain that we have rather overdone 

 our health aims and ideals, and we must now remove all unnecessary faddist 

 restrictions as to building and building material, the removal of which would not 

 be prejudicial to health. Our building bye-laws would appear to be framed to 

 make cottages costly and to last a century or more. Long before a half-century 

 can have passed our habits will have so altered that different types and plans of 

 houses altogether will be required, and we shall be pulling down and rebuilding 

 these needlessly costly homes. All this wild talk of profiteering when rents are 

 raised must cease and builders must be free, as are all other citizens, including 

 their tenants, to receive increased income to meet increased rates, taxes, main- 

 tenance, as well as increased cost of building. Then the joiner, bricklayer, 

 stonemason, slater, and all other artisans must be freed from the tyranny of 

 restriction of output. There must be freedom to the master builder to pay wages, 

 always above the trade union minimum wage, as a premium for increased output. 

 In this way house building will be cheapened enormously, rents be made easy of 

 payment on basis of cost of production out of the higher wages earned by the 

 artisan. Then houses and all property in the form of buildings must be freed 

 from the burden of our present system of rating and all necessary local taxation 

 must be raised by a local income tax. I have here before me a list of rates levied 

 in towns in England during 191 8, and I find they vary in total amount from 

 4s. nd. in the £ in Oxford to 14s - . in West Ham, and that on the average the 

 rating in the £ for 1918 is 20 per cent, to 25 per cent, higher than it was in 1914. 

 In Oxford there are practically no industrial factories, but there is a good average 

 high income — so that Oxford would still be a low-rated town. In West Ham 

 there are abundance of industrial works, and an income-tax on local earnings and 

 incomes of both employers and employees would make the heavy load of rates an 

 easier burden borne by all sections of citizens. Equally in our seaports, such as 

 Liverpool, the earnings of our shipowners would contribute their just share in the 

 form of local income-tax to the expenses of municipal government instead of, as at 

 present, being rated quite inadequately on office rent only, whilst their ships, 

 which are really so many floating factories, escape rating altogether. 



On these lines, and only on some such lines, can we meet our difficulties in 

 housing. We must look now and in the future, as in the past, to the private 

 enterprise and self-reliance of our citizens, and not hope to solve our problems 

 by looking to Government for doles and sops and to the building of " leaning 

 houses " dependent on the rotten and insecure prop of Government support. 



