A general and progressive rise in rents has been taking place for many years. The following index numbers for the great towns are given in the second series of memoranda published by the Board of Trade in 1904 (Cd. 1761):—
Relative Working-Class Rents.
| 1880 | 86.6 | 1890 | 89.9 |
| 1885 | 90.1 | 1900 | 100.0 |
| 1895 | 96.3 |
The tendency to rise is attributable to increased cost of labour, due to higher wages and less work, increased cost of materials and higher rates. Weekly working-class rents generally include rates which are paid by the landlord. Housing reform has contributed to the rise, both directly and through the rates, on which it has thrown a heavy burden in various ways. When slums are cleared away and replaced by superior dwellings the new rents are generally higher than the old and this fact has proved a great difficulty. Most of the improved housing is beyond the means of those who need it most, and they seek other quarters resembling the old ones as nearly as possible. The example of Liverpool, which has the largest proportion of casual and ill-paid labour of all the great towns, and has been the most successful in providing new dwellings of a fair quality, centrally situated and not in blocks, at really low rates, shows that the problem is not insoluble; but as a rule too little attention is paid to the question of rent in housing reform, especially in building undertaken by municipalities. It is not ignored, but the importance attached to it by the poor is not realized. To them it is the first consideration after four walls, a roof and a fire-place; and 6d. a week makes a vast difference in their calculations. Reform which aims at raising the lowest classes of tenants by improving their dwellings defeats itself when it drives them away.
Rural Housing.—Little has hitherto been said about rural housing. It is of less importance than urban housing because it concerns a much smaller proportion of the population, and because in rural life the influence of inferior housing on health is offset by other conditions; but it has recently attracted much attention and was made the subject of inquiry by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1906. The report laid stress chiefly on the inaction of local rural authorities under the Public Health and Housing Acts, and on various obstacles in the way of improving existing houses and of providing more and better ones at rents which agricultural labourers can afford to pay. The available facts with regard to rural housing are scrappy and unsatisfactory. The word “rural” has no precise meaning and it includes several very different sections of the population; for instance, the inhabitants of suburbs, mining villages and mill villages as well as the real agricultural population. Complaint is made of both the quantity and the quality of rural housing. With regard to quantity it is said that in spite of migration to the towns there is a dearth of cottages through dilapidation and demolition without rebuilding. That may happen in particular localities, but there is no evidence to support a general allegation. Inquiries issued by the Board of Trade to agricultural correspondents brought the following replies: insufficient 56, sufficient 111, more than sufficient 32. Similar inquiries of land agents and owners resulted thus: insufficient 9, sufficient 11, more than sufficient 4, variable 6. From which it appears that insufficiency exists but is not general. The official evidence with regard to overcrowding is that it is much less acute than in the towns. The proportion of the rural population in England living in overcrowded conditions in 1901 was 5.8%; if the rural mining districts, the exceptional overcrowding of which has been noted above, be eliminated, the rest cannot be very bad. Moreover, the percentage has appreciably diminished; in 1891 it was 8.46. The complaint of bad quality is better founded. Some landowners take great pride in the state of their property, and excellent cottages may be found in model villages and elsewhere in many parts of the country; but much rural housing is of an extremely insanitary character. A good deal of evidence on this head has of late years been published In the reports of medical inspectors to the Local Government Board. And local authorities are very reluctant to set the law in motion against insanitary dwellings. On the other hand, they have in some cases hindered and prevented building by too rigid insistence on by-laws, framed with a view to urban housing and quite unsuited to rural conditions. A few rural authorities have taken action with regard to building schemes under Part III. of the Housing Act. A list of 31 in 17 counties is given in “Housing up to Date”; 13 applications were refused and 13 granted by the respective county councils and others were dropped. Details are given by the same authority of 54 houses built by 17 rural district councils. Public action may thus be said to amount to nothing at all. Landowners, however, have borrowed under the Improvements of Lands Acts upwards of £1,250,000 for building labourers’ cottages; and this is probably only a fraction of the amount spent privately.
In Ireland a special condition of affairs exists. A series of about a dozen acts, dating from 1881 and culminating in the Labourers (Ireland) Act of 1906, have been passed for promoting the provision of labourers’ cottages; and under them 20,634 cottages had been built and some thousands more authorized previous to the act of 1906, which extended the pre-existing facilities. The principle is that of the English Housing Acts applied to rural districts, but the procedure is simpler and quicker. The law provides that a representation may be made to the local authority by three ratepayers or resident labourers that “the existing house accommodation for agricultural labourers and their families is deficient having regard to the ordinary requirements of the district, or is unfit for human habitation owing to dilapidation, want of air, light, ventilation or other convenience or to any other sanitary defects,” whereupon the local authority shall make an improvement scheme. It may also initiate a scheme without representation, or the Local Government Board may do so in default of the local authority. The scheme is published, an inquiry held, notice given and an order made with very much less delay and expense than under the English law. Land is purchased by agreement, or compulsorily and the money for land and building raised by loan. Loans amounting to about 3½ millions sterling had been raised down to 1906. The great majority of the cottages built are in Münster and Leinster. They must have at least 2 bedrooms and a kitchen, and the habitable rooms must be 8 ft. high. One of the most remarkable features is the low cost—about £150—at which these cottages have been built, including land and the expenses of procedure.
Recent Developments.—It is clear from a general review of the subject that the problem of housing the working classes in a satisfactory manner has proved more complex than was at one time realized. Experience has falsified hopes and led to a change of attitude. It is seen that there are limits to drastic interference with the normal play of economic forces and to municipal action on a large and ambitious scale. A reaction has set in against it. At the same time the problem is being attacked on other sides and from new points of departure. The tendency now is towards the more effectual application of gradual methods of improvement, the utilization of other means and the exercise of prevention in preference to cure. Under each of these heads certain movements may be noted.
The most troublesome problem is the treatment of existing bad housing. In regard to this the policy of large improvement schemes under which extensive areas are bought up and demolished has had its day, and is not likely to be revived to any considerable extent. That is not only because it is extremely costly but also because it has in the main done its work. It has done what could not have been done otherwise, and has swept away the worst of the old housing en masse. To call it a failure because it is costly and of limited application would be as great a mistake as to regard it as a panacea. The procedure which seems to be coming into favour in place of it is that adopted in Birmingham and advocated by Mr J. S. Nettlefold (Practical Housing) coupled with a more general and effective use of the Public Health Acts. The principle is improvement in detail effected by pressure brought to bear on owners by public authority. The embodiment of this principle forms an important part of the Housing and Town Planning Bill introduced by the Local Government Board in 1908, which contained clauses empowering the central authority to compel apathetic local authorities to do their duty in regard to the closing of unfit houses, and authorizing local authorities both to issue closing orders and to serve notices on landlords requiring them “to execute such works as the local authority may specify as being necessary to make the house in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation.”
Among the other and less direct means to which attention is being turned is the policy of getting people away from the towns. The effect of improved travelling facilities in reducing urban overcrowding has been noted above. That object was not specifically contemplated in the building and electrification of tramways, and in the development of other means of cheap local travel, but the beneficial effect has caused them to be recognized as an important factor in relation to housing and to be more systematically applied in that connexion. A newer departure, however, is to encourage migration not to the outskirts of towns but altogether into the country by facilitating the acquisition of small holdings of land. This has been done by private landowners in an experimental way for some years, and in 1907 the policy was embodied in the Small Holdings Act, which gives county and borough councils power to purchase or hire land compulsorily and let it in holdings of not more than 50 acres or £50 annual value. Failing action on their part the Board of Agriculture may frame schemes. Power is also conferred on the Board and on County Councils to establish co-operative agricultural societies and credit banks. These measures have been adopted from foreign countries, and particularly from Denmark and Germany. A very large number of applications for holdings have been made under this act, but it is too early to state the effects. They will depend on the success of tenants in earning a livelihood by agricultural produce.
Another new and quite different departure is the attempt to establish a novel kind of town, called a “Garden City,” which shall combine the advantages of the town and the country. The principal points are the choice of a site, which must be sufficiently convenient to enable industries to be carried on, yet with rural surroundings, the laying out of the ground in such a way as to ensure plenty of open space and variety, the insistence on building of a certain standard and the limitation of size. One has been established at Letchworth in Hertfordshire, 34 m. from London, and so far seems to be prospering. It consists of an area of 3800 acres, bought from the previous owners by a company registered in 1903 and entitled First Garden City Ltd., with a capital of £300,000 in £5 shares. The interest is limited to a dividend of 5%, all further profits to be devoted to the benefit of the town. The estate is divided into a central urban area of 1200 and a surrounding agricultural belt of 2600 acres. The town is planned for an eventual population of 30,000 and at present (1909) has about 5000. Some London printing works and other small industrial establishments have been planted there, and a number of model cottages have been built. In this connexion another recent novelty has appeared in the shape of an exhibition of cottages. The idea, originated by Mr St Loe Strachey, was to encourage the art of designing and building cheap but good and convenient cottages, especially for the country. Two exhibitions have been held at Letchworth in 1905 and 1907, and others at Sheffield (1907) and Newcastle (1908). The two latter were held on municipal land, and it is proposed by the National Housing Reform Council to hold one every year.