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46
move to a house and pay more rent, if necessary. It is
from these persons that the demand for houses proceeds.
It is impossible to give any figures as to the number of
houses required. It is obviously not entirely a Bethnal
Green problem, as there is no land in Bethnal Green on
which to build houses. Our tenement dwellers must
learn to realise this, and face the prospect, unwelcome
though it may seem, of living out on the borders of
London, perhaps many miles from their workplace.
This should be no hardship provided the workers are
able to pay for the necessary transport and such transport
is efficient and properly organised. This is assuming
that central London will become largely extended as
a collection of offices, factories and workshops; but it is
for the workers of London to decide whether the process
of centralising industry in the centre of a town such as
London is desirable, or whether all new factories and
workshops required (apart from offices) might not be
situated on the outskirts of London. The feeling of
East-end people on this matter is somewhat inarticulate,
but there is some appearance of its favouring the future
town-planning of the Borough rather on residential lines.
Whatever the future of London may be, the tenement
system stands condemned as a relic of mediaeval conditions,
and its persistence is mainly due to the lack of
proper transport facilities for the workers in our towns.
Recent housing legislation places the responsibility
for the provision of new houses in the Borough on the
Borough Council, and for houses outside the county on
the County Council. As regards Bethnal Green there is
practically no land available for building operations on
any large scale. Here and there, there are plots of land