Before one of these Commissions[3] the following striking evidence was given—evidence which it might reasonably be expected would have moved any Government to immediate action:—
“Every day’s experience convinces me,” deposed the witness,[4] “that a very large proportion of these evils is capable of being removed; that if proper attention were paid to sanitary measures, the mortality of these districts would be most materially diminished, perhaps in some places one-third, and in others even a half.
“The poorer classes in these neglected localities and dwellings are exposed to causes of disease and death which are peculiar to them; the operation of these peculiar causes is steady, unceasing, sure; and the result is the same as if twenty or thirty thousand of these people were annually taken out of their wretched dwellings and put to death—the actual fact being that they are allowed to remain in them and die. I am now speaking of what silently but surely takes place every year in the metropolis alone.”
But the Government took no action—beyond a Building Act which did little as regarded the housing of the people. No local bodies took action, and years were to pass before either Government or Parliament stirred in the matter.
In dealing historically with matters relating to London as a whole, it is to be remembered that for a long time there had been practically two Londons—that defined and described as the “City,” and the rest of London—that which had no recognised boundaries, no vestige of corporate existence, and which can best be described by the word “metropolis.”
The “City” was virtually the centre of London—the centre of its wealth, its industry, its geographical extent—a precisely defined area of some 720 acres, or about one square mile in extent, and originally surrounded by walls. Its boundaries had been fixed at an early period of our history, and had never been extended or enlarged. So densely was it covered with houses at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and so fully peopled, that there was practically no room for more, either of houses or people; and from then to the middle of that century its population was stationary—being close upon 128,000 at each of those periods.
Apart altogether from political influences, there were in the “City” powerful economic forces at work which profoundly affected the condition and circumstances of the people, not only of the “City,” but of London.
These, which were by no means so evident at one time, became more and more pronounced as time went on.