Public opinion, however, is hard to move, and usually slow in moving; and when it has at last decided on definite action Parliament is slow in giving effect to the decision, and, when Parliament at last acts, the legislation itself is frequently defective. And so the outlook was rather hopeless.
Various other more concrete amendments were, however, suggested in the various Housing Acts to render them more effective for their purpose.
And, as a result, in the session of Parliament of 1885 a Bill was introduced dealing with the “Housing of the Working Classes.”
Lord Salisbury, in moving the second reading, said[166]:—
The Bill he introduced was to a certain extent “a compromise.” “No one need expect to find that it contains any magic formula which will cure all the evils of which this House and the public have heard a great deal, and there is nothing startling, sensational or extreme in its provisions. We are hoping to cure these evils by slow and gradual steps, by the application of remedies apparently not far-reaching in their character, but still judiciously directed to the precise difficulties which arose in each department of our inquiry.”
The Bill duly passed (48 & 49 Vic. cap. 72).
Most of the reforms embodied in it were of a trifling character and such as could have only the most limited and gradual effect.
This Act extended generally the operation of the Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Acts of 1851 and 1867, and substituted the Metropolitan Board of Works for the Vestries and District Boards as the authority under the Act.
A really useful plan was authorised by it, namely, the sale, at a fair market price, to the Metropolitan Board of certain prison sites in London for housing purposes. And one other good thing done was depriving the owner of insanitary premises, which had been pulled down by order of the local authority, of the power to require the local authority to purchase such premises.