COTTAGE ACCOMMODATION. 277 



The difficulty confronting us is to get the 

 demand for better cottages expressed by those 

 who want them. That great Democrat of 

 Battersea, the President of the Local Govern- 

 ment Board, would be, we all imagined, the 

 first to recognise this fact. He did in fact 

 recognise this fact when he framed the Town 

 Planning Act of 1909, but a regime of 

 bureaucracy at Whitehall seems to have 

 dulled his wits with regard to the village 

 labourer. In the administration of his own 

 Act he has shown himself adverse to holding 

 any Local Government Board Enquiry unless 

 a complete case is presented by the petitioners ; 

 that is to say, unless the village labourer, 

 unlearned in letters, shows himself possessed 

 of forensic knowledge ! Mr. John Burns does 

 not seem to realise that the country labourer 

 has as great a horror of filling up a " form " 

 as the educated followers of Captain Prettyman 

 of filling up Form IV. of the Finance Act. 



It seems to me that the only way to obtain 

 evidence is to appoint Housing Commissioners 

 just as we have appointed Small Holdings 

 Commissioners, who shall make a tour of 

 inspection of all districts where bad housing 

 conditions prevail. For this is not an in- 



