280 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



labourers obtaining by organisation a higher 

 wage, and at the same time having better 

 cottages to live in than those which they have 

 vacated. The new cottages should at any rate 

 give the children room in which to breathe. 

 Those tubercular breeding dens, with low- 

 pitched bedrooms without fireplaces and shot- 

 holes for windows, might then very well be 

 razed to the ground. 



I am told that hi the north of England, 

 where boiler clinkers can be had for the cart- 

 ing, and in other parts where gravel is in 

 abundance and cheap, and coast shingle easy 

 to get, cottages made of concrete blocks are 

 being built for £90. For these cottages in 

 which cement is used to the proportion of 

 one to four or five, a block-making machine 

 can be hired for £6 a month. Such cottages 

 could be let at a rent compassable by the 

 labourer. Indeed, I know of one small-holding 

 settlement where cottages built in this way 

 are now being erected. 



Yet we have to face the fact that in many 

 districts building material is not to be obtained 

 in this easy and cheap manner, and it is these 

 districts which we cannot as a nation afford to 

 leave undeveloped, simply because labourers 



