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167
"That the London County Council be approached with a view to the
insertion of a clause in their General Powers Bill of 1899, to enable
Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards, to erect municipal dwellings,
under Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890."
It was argued that metropolitan local authorities should
have the same powers as provincial municipalities, &c., under
the Act. In dealing with this question, in the annual
summary appended in the thirteenth report for 1897 (page
165), I observed that:—
"Your Vestry have at present, no power to put Part III. into operation:
it only remains, therefore . . . that steps should be taken to promote
legislation to make the sanitary authority the local authority, sole or
concurrent, under this Part. It was" (I added) "a legislative mistake to
endue the County Council with exclusive power, and the sooner the
mistake is rectified the better." I pointed out, moreover, the "strange
anomaly that the sanitary authority in the metropolis should be denied
powers enjoyed by the most insignificant urban sanitary authority without
London," and illustrated the benefits that might be conferred on the
poor by the experience of the governing authority of the City of
Glasgow, "where municipal lodging-houses for the dregs of the
population, the outcasts of society, have been provided; the means of
a comfortable, homely, and a social life of a sort, being thus secured to
these poor creatures, at a reasonable outlay for lodging and other
accommodation, and this without entailing any burden on the ratepayers."
In connection with the resolutions of the Bermondsey
Conference, the sanitary committee had before them, (1) a letter
from the Vestry of Battcrsea stating that they had requested
the County Council to insert a clause in their next General
Powers Bill, empowering local authorities to erect dwellings
for the working classes, and asking your Vestry to take
similar action; (2) a letter from the North Kensington
Ratepayers' Association, supporting the view expressed in the
letter from the Battersea Vestry, and (3) my report
dated 20th July, (1898), in which the question as to the
desirability of local authorities being vested with powers concurrent
with those of the County Council, enabling them to