PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 237 



judge by appeaiaiiws, the vaguest and most unsatisfactory opinions exist as 

 to the capacity of the community to meet the various claims which are pre- 

 ferred for a share of the wealth from which alone these claims can be satisfied. 

 Many people seem to think that no demand is too exorbitant. We are asked 

 to provide houses by the hundred thousand undeterred by the consideration 

 that they will cost two, three, or even four fold the amount at which they 

 could have been built before the war. They are, moieover, to afford accommoda- 

 tion of a much better character than was thought sufficient a very short time 

 ago. Houses built as recently as twenty years ago are no longer good enough 

 for the social reformers of to-day. It is forgotten that something like 80,0CK) 

 houses are needed each year to accommodate the growth of the population. 

 There are to-day something over eight million inhabited houses in Great 

 Britain. Not more than half of these are more than fifty years old. During the 

 war housebuilding had almost ceased, but before 1914 the building of houses had 

 been checked by two causes. The various Acts of Parliament dealing with 

 matters affecting the building of houses had so enhanced their cost that there 

 was the greatest uncertainty whether houses could be built to return a reason- 

 able interest on their cost. 



But the second cause was of as great, or possibly even greater, significance. 

 The trade imions connected with the building trades had gradually succeeded 

 in imposing conditions which had added enormously to the cost of building. 

 It would not be difficult to show why this had been possible, but it would 

 take me too far to follow this line of thought. The fact will not be denied 

 by anyone conversant with the circumstances. The result of all this is a serious 

 , shortage of houses, and this it is proposed to make up by grants from the 

 public purse. If this were the only demand of the kind we might face it 

 with more equanimity than is in fact the case. But when we look elsewhere 

 we see other claims comparable in their effects on the public purse but differing 

 in kind. 



The railway enterprise in this country may serve as typical of what is 

 meant. Prior to the war the railways were carrying on their duties in a manner 

 which enabled the country to get thi'ough its business in a profitable and, on 

 the whole, fairly satisfactory way. They earned sufficient revenue to pay a 

 fair return to the shareholders. It is true the prospect was not reassuring. 

 The railway management was meeting the usual contradictory claims preferred 

 against almost evei-y industi-y. It was asserted that they were rendering 

 services which were not nearly as great as were demanded by their customers, 

 and they were charging for them rates which were regarded as quite out of 

 proportion to the value of the services. On the other hand, they were paying 

 wages which the recipients thought entirely inadequate for much longer hours 

 of service than their workmen were disposed to give. Negotiations between 

 the parties had obtained certain concessions as to hours of work, and also as 

 to rates of pay ; but these were not accepted as sufficient, and Parliament was 

 called upon to intervene, with the result that statutory hours were imposed. 



The vei-y essential difference between hours of work or rates of pay resulting 

 from convention between the partic:; interested and the same imposed by statute 

 is often overloioked. The convention can be varied to meet the vai-ying circum- 

 stances. The statute provides a hard and fast rule, from which it is impossible 

 to depart without incurring penalties. An example of this may be found 

 in the Cleveland Ironstone Mines, which, by a series of strange accidents, come 

 under the Coal Mine Regulation Acts, and are thus subject to all the condi- 

 tions imposed by statnt? on coal mining. Employers and workmen are agreed 

 in desiring to modify the provisions of the Acts as to hours of work on Satur- 

 days. Their joint application to the proper Department for permission to 

 do this has been refused for reasons which that Department (quite properly) 

 regards as unanswerable. The officials decline to exercise a dispensing power 

 and require that the provisions of the Act be rigidly followed. 



When the railway companies pointed out the serious effect which these 

 statutory obligations imposed on them hnd en their revenue-earning capacity 

 and sought power to increase the rates their customers were up in arms. The 

 very men who, in Parliament and elsewhere, were applauding the decision 

 to give relief to the railway servants resolutely refused to pay the extra 

 cost thus incurred. With difficulty was Parliament induced to give the 



