TRANSACTIONS OF SEGTION ¥. 661 
Various devices have been attempted in order to secure the occupation of nunicipal 
houses by the really poor. 
(6) Some advocate the plan of building ordinary houses or tenements in large 
number in order that municipal competition may lower the level of rents. The 
results of this are slight. 
(c) Recently attempts have been made to develop suburban estates. This 
seems hopeful, but there are many difficulties, especially as to providing for the 
very poor on such estates. 
‘The main task of house building must be left to private enterprise; the duty of 
local authorities is to urge private enterprise to do the very best that can be done. 
There are two main ways of bringing this about: (1) By wise building by-laws 
properly enforced ; (2) by thorough administration of the sanitary laws. These 
two duties are at present very imperfectly performed. The urgent necessity of 
guarding suburbs and new districts is not yet realised. 
Local authorities have experienced great difficulties, especially financial difficul- 
ties, as to their building schemes, but recent developments seem more hopeful. 
Local authorities ought (1) to make experiments, lead, and suggest (examples, 
Sheffield and Camberwell); (2) in cases of monopoly create competition ; (3) 
where necessary deal with classes which cannot be left to private enterprise, but 
great caution is essential to the success of such plans. 
4. The Increase of Suburban Populations. By Sipney Low, 6.4. 
1. The transfer of population from rural to urban areas. A widely diffused 
tendency ; noticeable not merely in Great Britain, but in Continental countries, 
and even in America and Australia. 
2, Illustrations of this movement during recent years in England. Declining 
and increasing centres of population. 
3. The movement, bowever, is not, as often represented, a mere migration 
from the country to the towns, but rather from the country to those spreading 
suburban districts which are partly urban and partly rural. ‘The central areas of 
the towns, so far from increasing, are themselves stationary or declining. The 
four largest cities in England have advanced at a less rapid rate than the country 
generally. Taking London as a whole, there is a positive decrease in several of 
the districts which make up the ‘Inner Ring,’ and very little progress in others. 
On the other hand, there is enormous increase in the purely suburban agglomera- 
tions, such as Willesden, Walthamstow, and East Ham. The further we get 
from the centre of the town, so long as we do not pass beyond a distance accessible 
by cheap and rapid means of locomotion, the more marked is the expansion. 
4. A consideration of this movement tends to mitigate the anxiety with which 
the migration from the rural districts is often regarded. No doubt the congestion 
of enormous masses in great cities is detrimental to health and attended by social 
evils of various kinds. It is often assumed that the stamina of a nation cannot be 
maintained unless a considerable proportion of its inhabitants live under rural 
conditions. But the suburb-dweller is free from many of the depressing and 
unwholesome influences which affect the townsman, and may enjoy the advantages 
of fresh air, facilities for exercise, and contact with Nature. 
5. It is, however, necessary that the suburbs should be governed with as much 
vigilance and intelligent care as the great towns. At present large populations 
planted just outside the administrative rmg-fence of the county or municipal 
borough are under inadequate supervision. To find a proper system of suburban 
government is one of the great social and political problems of the immediate 
future. 
