CHAPTER VI 



HOUSING 



Much attention has been directed in recent 

 years to rural housing in connection with the 

 land question, but the subject is obscured 

 by failure to distinguish the housing of 

 agricultural labourers from rural housing at 

 large. The latter covers much wider ground 

 and has a different object in view. The con- 

 fusion lies in the word " rural," which is 

 loosely used in a general sense as synonymous 

 with " agricultural," and also in a technical 

 administrative sense as opposed to " urban." 

 In this sense it covers a great deal of ground 

 which has nothing to do with agriculture or 

 the land question. It includes colliery and 

 mill villages, suburban districts, small market 

 and shopping centres, and other places in- 

 habited by non-agricultural classes. Rural 

 housing, thus regarded, is part of the admin- 

 istrative problem of public health, and is both 

 more extensive and more urgent than that 

 part of it which is really concerned with 

 agricultural life. The most insanitary con- 

 ditions and the worst over-crowding occui 

 in colliery villages, particularly in the North 

 of England and Scotland, where traditional 

 and obsolete forms of housing, such as rows 

 of one-storey back-to-back cottages, prevail. 



54 



