TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 645 
labour—and, unhappily, farm labour, skilled in its own fields, becomes unskilled 
when transferred to the streets and factories, 
This, then, being the general argument against municipal building and owning 
of houses for the poorest classes, 1 go on to consider if there may not be cireum- 
stances in the evolution of a city which may justify the relaxation of the principle. 
Glasgow again afiords an object-lesson. If the houses which are a danger to 
public health, as hopelessly insanitary, are pulled down; if ‘back lands’ and 
obstructive buildings are demolished; if the houses which are by law pronounced 
‘illegal’ and cannot, from their structure and situation, be altered, are closed; and 
if the overcrowding laws are put sternly in force, something between 15,000 and 
20,000 persons will be turned out, and will not be able to find houses at rents 
such as they were paying—for these measures will practically root out the low- 
rented houses in Glasgow. Many of the 15,000 or 20,000, no doubt, are well-paid 
wage-earners who will be the better of being forced into higher-rented houses ; 
many of them, again, are dissolute and drunken persons who should be ‘hustled ’ 
from pillar to post till there is no room for them among honest people. But 
many of them, in all probability, are respectable persons who, from the causes 
already mentioned, have come down to the 17s,-a-week level. What are these 
people to do? Granted that the low-rented slum property should never have 
been allowed to come into existence or continue; granted that the best thing that 
could happen to such labourers as a class is that it should be made impossible for 
them to accept these low wages; still it is a very drastic thing to take away the 
patient’s bed in order to force him to walk. 
Here I am chiefly impressed by two things. The first is that it is municipal 
inaction and municipal action which are responsible for the hardship. 
(a) It is by no fault of their own that the people to be dispossessed are in occu- 
pation of these low-class houses. The Municipality for years allowed these houses 
to come into and remain in existence, and, to that extent, the Municipality is 
responsible for the low standard of life which allowed the tenants to take the low 
wages, 
(2) It is to a great extent new municipal requirements that have made it im- 
possible to build houses to be let at the old rents. To mention only a few of these: 
each adult must have 400 feet of air space, which means larger apartments; there 
must be ample sanitary appliances, involving expensive plumber-work ; there are 
provisions for thickness of walls and solidity of construction, which many builders 
declare quite unnecessary, 
The second is that, on its way towards conferring a great public benefit, this 
municipal action is likely to inflict serious hardship on a class who are least of all 
able to bear it. It is a recognised principle, in the science of public finance, that the 
charge of any general public benefit defrayed from rates or taxes should be spread 
over the citizens in proportion to their ability. In the present case, we have a great 
beneficent measure of public health by which all the citizens will gain, and in quite 
indeterminate measure ; and, although this is not defrayed from the rates, by parity 
of reasoning it seems to follow that one class, and that the least able to bear the 
burden, should not be made to bear the heavy end of it. Granted that, by the opera- 
tion of ordinary economic law, wages will ultimately rise to cover the higher rent 
demanded by private enterprise, and granted also that the houses at a higher 
rent have a ‘productive value’ which will itself enable the tenant to pay more 
rent, in virtue of giving him immunity from sickness, depression, low vitality, and 
_ bad neighbours, still this operation takes time, and, till time is given for the eco- 
nomic forces to work, there will be great hardship. 
There is, besides, an opportunist argument. There seems to be no doubt that 
the magistrates and responsible officials have hitherto shrunk from carrying out 
their powers because of the hardship that will be entailed. If this hardship can 
be avoided, there will remain no excuse and no reason for not proceeding rigorously 
with measures which otherwise might be somewhat extreme. 
It is in consideration of these circumstances that the Glasgow Commission has 
recommended the erection by the Municipality, up to the extent of certain powers 
