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TO THE
PUBLIC HEALTH COMMITTEE.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,
In presenting the Annual Report on the work of the Health Overcrowding.
Department for the year 1907, it seems desirableto revert to the
question of overcrowding, which appears to require further elucidation
in spite of all that has been said and written on the subject.
Overcrowding seems to be a good hardy annual flourishing
all the year round, and providing endless subject matter for talk
amongst all schools and classes of would-be sanitary reformers and
others who appear to imagine that overcrowding and the condition
of the people question, are to be remedied and removed by talking.
It is true that in addition to mere words, resolutions in varying
terms are passed from time to time, and the Sanitary Authorities
called upon to put down what, without question, is a great evil; but
as no one seems to know how the casual worker and the general
labourer can be provided with at least three rooms at a price within
his means, the question does not get much nearer a final solution,
or, indeed, any settlement.
Year after year the matter is kept up, and everything possible
and impossible said and written about it, but with a view to
emphasising the difficulties of the question, and if possible to prove
the utter uselessness of continuing on existing lines, I have got the
Inspectors to note the condition of the family when making their
enquiries, and to mention those in which, from sheer poverty the
people are unable to comply with even such a standard of accommodation
as would be enforced in Common Lodging Houses.
The result of their enquiries follow in detail, and your
Committee will note that in numbers of cases poverty and lack