THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS. 7 



Already I have hinted that interferences with the connection be- 

 tween supply and demand, given up in certain fields after immense 

 mischiefs had been done during many centuries, are now taking place 

 in other fields. This connection is supposed to hold only where it has 

 been proved to hold by the evils of disregarding it : so feeble is men's 

 belief in it. There seems no suspicion that, in cases where it seems to 

 fail, it is because it has been traversed by artificial hindi-ances. And 

 yet in the case to which I now refer — that of the supply of houses for 

 the poor — it needs but to ask what laws have been doing for a long 

 time past, to see that the terrible evils complained of are mostly law- 

 made. 



A generation ago discussion was taking place concerning the inade- 

 quacy and badness of industrial dwellings, and I had occasion to deal 

 with the question. Here is a passage then written : 



An architect and surveyor describes it [the Building Act] as having worked 

 after the following manner : In those districts of London consisting of inferior 

 houses, built in that unsubstantial fashion which the New Building Act was to 

 mend, there obtains an average rent, sufficiently remunerative to landlords whose 

 houses were run up economically before the New Building Act passed. This 

 existing average rent fixes the rent that must be charged in these districts for 

 new houses of the same accommodation — that is, the same number of rooms, for 

 the people they are built for do not appreciate the extra safety of living within 

 walls strengthened with hoop-iron bond. Now, it turns out upon trial, that 

 houses built in accordance with the present regulations, and let at this estab- 

 lished rate, bring in nothing like a reasonable return. Builders have conse- 

 quently confined themselves to erecting houses in better districts (where the pos- 

 sibility of a profitable competition with pre-existing houses shows that those pre- 

 existing houses were tolerably substantial), and have ceased to erect dwellings 

 for the masses, except in the suburbs where no pressing sanitary evils exist. 

 Meanwhile, in the inferior districts above described, has resulted an increase of 

 overcrowding — half a dozen families in a house, a score lodgers to a room. Nay, 

 more than this has resulted. That state of miserable dilapidation into which 

 these abodes of the poor are allowed to fall is due to the absence of competition 

 from new houses. Landlords do not find their tenants tempted away by the 

 offer of better accommodation. Repairs, being unnecessary for securing the 

 largest amount of profit, are not made. ... In fact, for a large percentage of 

 the very liorrors which our sanitary agitators are now trying to cure by law, we 

 have to thank previous agitators of the same school! — "Social Statics," p. 384 

 (first edition). 



These were not the only law-made causes of such evils. As shown in 

 the following further passage, sundry others were recognized : 



Writing before the repeal of the brick-duty, " The Builder " says : " It is 

 supposed that one fourth of the cost of a dweUing which lets for 2s. %d. or 3s. a 

 week is caused by the expense of the title-deeds and the tax on wood and bricks 

 used in its construction. Of course, the owner of such property must be remu- 

 nerated, and he therefore charges 1\d. or ^d. a week to cover these burdens." 

 M. C. Gatliff, secretary to the Society for Improving the Dwellings of the "Work- 

 ing-Classes, describing the effect of the window-tax, says: '' They are now pay- 



