The Cost of the Dwelling
Everything which increases the cost of the dwelling must tend to increase overcrowding.
The London rents are enormous; the artisan pays 7s. or 8s. for accommodation which he could get in a village for 1s. 6d., and in a country town for 2s. 6d.
The rich man pays his 200l., 300l., or more for a house (without a square inch of curtilage) which out of London would fetch 40l. or 50l. at most.
In London it happens, probably, more often than elsewhere that people pay in house-rent a sum which is an excessive proportion of their income, and their finances feel the strain of slight increments to the cost of the dwelling, and they are often driven to take lodgers or 'paying-guests'; or people apparently well off give up their houses and take a 'flat,' in which the crowding is excessive.
This kind of thing goes on among the well-to-do classes, and certainly to a greater extent among the poor.
When we consider the charges, other than rent, in London as compared with country houses, we must never forget that, rents being three or more times as high in London as elsewhere, the rating in the pound ought to be multiplied by three or four before we can compare London rates with country rates.
Or we must take some other basis of comparison, such as the area occupied or the cubic contents. A house which I lived in in London for twenty-five years occupies an area of 18 by 72 feet, or 1,296 square feet, or 144 square yards.
The rent was originally 180l., which was raised to 200l. when the lease was renewed in 1892; i.e. the rent was originally 1l. 5s. per square yard, and is now 1l. 8s. per square yard. 'The rateable value' has been gradually pushed up from 150l. to 184l., and the gross value has lately been set down at 220l., or 10 per cent. more than the rent (because the tenant undertakes to do the repairs).
The changes other than rent have been as follows:—
| 1873 | 1896 | ||||||
| £ | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | ||
| Income Tax | } | 9 | 15 | 0 | 14 | 18 | 4 |
| Inhabited House Duty | } | ||||||
| Parochial Rates | 30 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 19 | 4 | |
| Water | 6 | 8 | 0 | 7 | 10 | 6 | |
| Total | 46 | 3 | 0 | 78 | 8 | 2 | |
| Rent | 180 | 0 | 0 | 200 | 0 | 0 | |
| Grand total | 226 | 3 | 0 | 278 | 8 | 2 | |
Thus it will be seen that the cost of this house (which has not been enlarged in any way) has been increased by 23 per cent. The rent has increased 11 per cent., or 20l. a year. The rates have increased by nearly 87 per cent., or very nearly 26l. a year.
The imperial taxes have increased nearly 53 per cent., or 5l. 3s. 4d. per year, and the water by nearly 18 per cent., or 1l. 2s. 6d. per year. It will be noted that while the tenant in this case submitted to an increase of 11 per cent., the charges over which the tenant has practically no control have increased in a much higher ratio, and now amount to 78l. 8s. 2d., or more than 10s. 6d. per square yard of occupied land, the total cost of the house being 1l. 18s. 6d. per square yard, or, including repairs, more than 2l. per square yard.
The total obligatory charges (rent, rates, taxes, and water), which in 1873 were 226l., had risen in 1896 to 278l. In the same time the interest on 100l. invested in Consols has fallen from 3l. 5s. to 2l. 10s.
In 1893 a sum of 7,000l. invested in Consols would have paid the obligatory charges on this house. In 1896 these charges could only be met by a sum of 11,000l. invested in Consols.
Looked at in this way, the cost of the dwelling has risen 57 per cent. in 23 years, the size of the dwelling remaining constant.
The charge for water has been included because no house is habitable without it, and in this case the tenant cannot sink a well, because the house is totally without curtilage of any kind, and the rain-water having fallen through the London air is so foully dirty as to be unusable.
The householders of London rightly view with alarm the rapid increase of the sum levied for rates. This sum has increased at the rate of more than 3 per cent. per annum during the twenty-five years I lived in the house I have been describing, and now amounts to rather more than 7s. 6d. per square yard occupied. The average householder is naturally nervous and apprehensive; he is getting unwilling to take a house for a long term, and is squeezing his household into 'flats,' in which (as the landlord pays the rates) the yearly expenditure on house accommodation is fairly calculable. The attractiveness of the flat is further enhanced by short-term leases, so that, should illness or a financial mishap befall him, he will be less heavily weighted than would be the case if he were the owner of a long, unmarketable lease.
I think we may take it for granted that if the well-to-do classes are showing a tendency to overcrowd, this tendency will be found to get progressively more intense as we descend in the social scale. The well-to-do occupiers of flats have to be content with what may be called 'rather close quarters,' but their servants are often squeezed into rooms scarcely bigger than cupboards. It is not conceivable that those who are in a dependent position will have better accommodation than those whom they serve.