Slum

Health statistics generally, mortality rates, the statistics of tuberculosis infection, of the defects of school children and of the analysis of the sicknesses of insured persons, all reveal, in common, the damaging results of life under these conditions. The following comparable table, as ascertained by Dr. Robert son, medical officer of health for Birmingham, for an overcrowded and a well-built area, seems fairly to represent the conditions generally found: In other, better-to-do, districts, such as Westminster, there are many cellar dwellings in houses or buildings which are not otherwise let in tenements.

The number of people affected by these two groups of housing conditions is not easy to ascertain, as the returns of the numbers of insanitary houses do not all provide the population statistics; whilst the returns of those that are styled "overcrowded" do not include all the dilapidated cottages and other bad houses which are not technically overcrowded. The standard of "overcrowd ing" adopted in England and Wales is "more than two persons" for each room, whilst in Scotland it is "more than three persons" for each room. Accepting these qualifications, however, there ap pear to be about a million houses in England and Wales that con sist of not more than two rooms, and there are rather more than three million people returned as overcrowded. In Scotland, de spite the fact that the overcrowding standard is lower, the pro portion of those inhabiting unsatisfactory dwellings is greater. In the city of Glasgow, for example, 470,000 people, or more than 6o per cent. of the total population of the city live in homes of not more than two rooms, and nearly a quarter of them have only one room. In Scotland, as a whole, there are 23- million people, or somewhat less than half the population, living in two rooms or less, and of these, 400,000 have one room only. The Royal Commission found that at least 5o per cent. of the one roomed houses, and 15 per cent. of the two-roomed houses, were so insanitary and dilapidated that they ought to be replaced.

Effects of Slum Life.

The effect upon the inhabitants of life under such conditions is difficult to imagine by those who have not examined them at first hand. The fact is that one or two gloomy rooms have to provide for all the purposes and events of family life. The character of the houses themselves is thus described in the Report of the Scottish Board of Health Com missioners on Glasgow Housing for 1926: The majority of the houses were dark, many of the tenants having to burn gas all day, winter and summer. Large numbers of tenements were built in the middle of hollow squares, hard up against high buildings on all sides, with no proper ventilation or light. Damp was present everywhere, the walls and ceilings in a large number of houses being literally soaking. Everywhere we noticed an almost total lack of sanitation, conveniences being few and for the most part out of repair, and in some cases leaking down the stairs and even into the houses. . . . Dilapidation is rife throughout the areas. Ceilings are falling down, woodwork is rotting away, there are holes in the walls of houses through which the street can be seen, and the plaster-work of the walls is loose and broken. The houses are a hunting-ground for vermin of every description. Fleas, of course, abound, but we found also that practically every property we inspected was absolutely bug-ridden. The tenants complained that they could get no peace from these pests, which drop upon their faces and Remedial Methods.—A certain proportion of the bad houses

is capable of improvement or restoration, although they would only then serve for a smaller number of inhabitants. In a very large proportion of these cases, however, the cost of repair or re-construction is so great that a private owner cannot look to regain it in the form of increased rent and this necessarily im poses a limit upon what can be expected. In many cases, also, the owners or leaseholders of poor houses are themselves people of small means and cannot command the necessary capital. Nevertheless much improvement has been effected by some local authorities, who have systematically and reasonably used their powers, to obtain improvements over a period of years. For example, the city of Manchester has finally secured the abolition of cellar dwellings, and in many towns a great reduction, or even the elimination, of back-to-back houses has been obtained.

The conduct of slum reclamation must necessarily be piece meal, as it is impossible to dis-house any great number of peo ple at a time during the process of reconstruction. The city of Liverpool presents, perhaps, the most conspicuous example of the valuable results obtained in the course of time by the pro gressive acquisition and reconstruction of bad portions of the city; where, by the accommodation of the dis-housed people in flats erected for their accommodation, it has been possible to ad just operations so as to avoid intensification of the pressure on surrounding streets.

Nevertheless, the policy of waiting until an area has become condemned until it can be acquired and so dealt with, has proved to be too limited to allow of general success, and the following conditions—chiefly based on the Report of the Unhealthy Areas Committee—seem to be essential: (I) A full use should continue to be made of all existing sanitary powers, in addition to the continued provision of new houses in open parts. (2) Unnecessary demolition should be restrained by the grant of power to "declare an area congested" and to prohibit the demolition of houses and the erection of other buildings therein without license. (3) Clear ance and reconstruction should be a part of a comprehensive and carefully prepared planning scheme affecting not only the area itself but adjacent parts of the town or country. (4) The local authority should be competent to undertake sufficiently extensive acquisition so as to enable it to obtain a better ultimate return by the proper disposition on the ground, of dwellings and of com mercial and business premises. (5) Pending such acquisition and reconstruction, authorities should be competent to "declare areas unhealthy" and to purchase them with the purpose of improving the housing conditions under a scheme of collective management and improvement. (6) Finally, apart from various technical pro posals as to the methods of acquisition and compensation, it is agreed that in London and the larger cities there should be a combination of authorities responsible for the supervision and execution of reconstruction schemes, for the reasons that the district afflicted with slums is usually poor and unable to bear the burden, and that an adequate town-planning scheme involves questions of transport and development which extend beyond the boundaries of individual authorities.