A short experience of it, and of “Cross’s” Housing Act, had shown that instead of “owners” being visited with heavy penalties for their iniquities, they were being actually rewarded. In fact, they secured under these Acts not only a full, but an inordinately high compensation for their property—regardless of its infamous condition—and the ratepayers of London were mulcted in large sums to pay them for it.
“I desire,” said the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney in 1883, “to express a very strong opinion that it is most unfair to the ratepayers that they should be compelled to pay for uninhabitable property which has been allowed by the owners to get into a dilapidated state for want of substantial repairs such as cannot be required under the Nuisances Removal Acts….”
The first scheme which was initiated by the Metropolitan Board in 1875 was only completed at a net cost of £151,763, which sum had to be borne by the ratepayers of London; though why they should have been made to pay for the “owners” neglect which had led to the evil conditions of his property is not very clear, except that Parliament willed it so.
By 1882 the total number of insanitary areas dealt with by the Metropolitan Board, or in process of being dealt with, was fourteen. The houses in these areas had been inhabited by 20,335 persons in 5,555 separate holdings, 3,349 of which consisted of one room only.[151]
They were acquired by the Board at a cost of £1,661,000. Parliament had imposed upon the Board the obligation to provide accommodation for at least as many persons of the working classes as were displaced by the destruction of the houses on these areas. As the Board were not empowered to undertake the building of the houses in which to re-accommodate the displaced persons, the sites, after having been cleared, had to be sold to persons or companies, who were put under the obligation to erect workmen’s dwellings thereon; but inasmuch as the land had been bought at its value for commercial purpose, which was far higher than its value for residential houses, this Parliamentary obligation entailed upon the Metropolitan Board, and through them upon the ratepayers of London, an enormous loss.
The Goulston Street scheme in Whitechapel, for instance, was acquired at a cost of £371,600. When sold, under the conditions imposed by Parliament, it realised only £87,600; and the Whitecross Street scheme (in St. Luke’s), which cost £391,000, when sold realised £76,350.
The whole of the transactions, so far, resulted in a net loss to the Metropolitan Board, or in other words, a net charge upon the ratepayers of London of over £1,100,000.
As Mr. Chamberlain described the result, in an article he contributed to the Fortnightly Review of December, 1883:—
“Torrens’ and Cross’ Housing Acts are tainted and paralysed by the incurable timidity with which Parliament … is accustomed to deal with the sacred rights of property….
“The individual wrong-doer is to remain unpunished—retribution for his sins is to be exacted from the whole community.”