To the last, however, he was not forgiven by many people for daring to be poor. A worthy lady at a church sewing-party in a London suburb became very indignant at the mention of the name of the Labour Mayor of Poplar. One of the members present—to whom I am indebted for the incident—happened to make an incidental reference to Crooks. "It's a shame, I say, to let such people be made important," cried the good lady with much feeling, stopping for a moment her work of making garments for the church bazaar. "Look how they interfere with business. My husband used to get fifteen per cent. from his Poplar property before they made that man Crooks Mayor. Now, what with being compelled to spend so much on repairs and new drains, it's as much as he can do to get ten per cent."
When Crooks heard of the incident, he said he had little doubt the husband was an ordinary decent man who invested in poor property, because, as house investment agencies sometimes state in their advertisements, it pays better than any other kind.
"Probably he is one of that large class who leave the collection of the rents and all control to agents. That is why slum property has paid so well in the past. It has been neglected. Nothing has been spent on ordinary repairs. Whatever expense we as a Municipal Council may put the owners to in order to make their property healthy, is strictly regulated by law. We cannot go beyond the letter of the law. The reason why investors in slum property have reaped such a rich harvest in the past is because neither they nor the local authorities have carried out the law.
"No man with ordinary sentiment can own slum property and collect his own rents. A flint-hearted agent generally has control. I know such a one well. If the tenant does not pay up by Saturday he waits and watches round the corner on Sunday morning. As soon as he sees the wife turn out to buy a piece of meat or a few vegetables from a coster's stall for Sunday's dinner, he pounces down on her and demands her few pence on account.
"It's so easy to run away from responsibility by simply saying, 'This is a mere investment, and I am not concerned with the tenants.'
"A very wealthy man who owns a lot of small houses in Poplar had his attention called to the hardship inflicted by the heavy increase in rents. He was told that a widow whose rent had just been doubled would have to seek parish relief if the new demand were enforced. 'My dear good fellow,' said the owner, 'I leave these matters to my agent. I don't want the woman's money. Look here,' pulling a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket. 'Why should I care about the woman's rent? I leave these trifles to my agent, and never interfere.'
"Can you wonder that so many of our people are driven to drink and immorality?" Crooks went on after telling this incident. "Sweated as they are for rent in this way, they begin to live in an unholy state of overcrowding. House speculators, Jewish and English, gamble with the people's homes. Nearly every time a house changes hands the rent is raised. The overcrowding is thus made worse than ever. The family living in three rooms takes two. The family in two rooms pushes its furniture closer together and goes into one.
"Surely something should be done by the State to prevent this gambling with poor people's rents. I would like to see Fair Rent Courts, where the rents could be fixed in fair proportion to the value of the house. Something of the kind has been done in Ireland; why not in England?
"One thing is certain: the more crowded the home is, the more convenient becomes the public-house, with its welcome light and deceptive cheerfulness tempting the wretched. Of course, in theory it is easy to argue that the poorer the man the more reason there is that he should not place in the publican's till the money that ought to be spent on food. I fear few of us would retain the moral courage to resist if we had to eat, live, and sleep in the same room, sometimes in the company of a corpse for several days."
Property owners were not alone in their opposition to the Labour Mayor. The publicans almost in a body were ranged against him. Nor was this only because of his uncompromising attack on the drink interests as such. It was mainly because he insisted on public-houses being rated on the same principle as the grocer's shop or the working-man's dwelling-house.