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of clearing the land, and making the sewers and roadways ready
for building operations, will not exceed the original estimate of
£300,000. On other areas acquired and cleared by the late
Metropolitan Board of Works, the Council are about to erect
houses for the working classes, with the sanction of the Home
Secretary. Thus, cottage dwellings of two storeys are to be
built on the Hughes Field Improvement area : similar dwellings
will be erected on the Goldsmith-square area, which
adjoins the Boundary-street area ; and ether schemes of the like
kind are in contemplation. The monetary return sought in
all these cases is, I believe, three per cent, per annum; it being
assumed that this amount will pay interest on the capital
outlay and provide for a sinking fund which, in a certain
number of years, will reproduce the original outlay.
In my Annual Report for 1888-89, I observed that it
would be well could the County Council enter into competition
with the owners of insanitary houses, by providing decent
houses for the working classes, at a moderate but remunerative
rent, under what was then known as Lord Shaftesbury's Act.
The Council, it will have been seen, are now attempting in real
earnest to do this. But they also recognize the impossibility
of relieving, to more than a limited extent, the present
unsatisfactory condition of things in regard to the housing of
the working classes, by the provision of fresh accommodation
in the form of model dwellings, whether undertaken by themselves
or others. The bulk of the people, they admit, must
live in existing houses, and be dependent on others for the
enforcement of sanitary conditions ; and the Council are now
able to realize what Sanitary Authorities ot older date, and
their officials, have long known but too well—the colossal difficulties
in the way of providing decent homes for the poor, at
any reasonable or remunerative rate.
Municipal Common Lodging Houses.—In former
reports references have been made to the desirability of the
County Council following the example of the Glasgow
Corporation by providing Municipal Lodging Houses, and