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34
The higher grades of the working classes (including the
skilled artisans) look after, and are catered for
by Artisans' Dwellings and after them other Companies, many of which
have large blocks of models in various parts of Lambeth, and
are doing a good work and supplying a much needed want.
It is not with such, however, that this present Report deals.
Any one who cares to inspect the districts mentioned above
(or other districts in Lambeth), and at the same time will
compare them with immediately adjoining districts belonging
to some other Authorities, will be satisfied that the methods
which have been adopted in Lambeth are giving better results
than those obtained from area condemnations, and that, too,
without displacement of tenants, and the spending of large
sums of money out of the rates.
Assuming that my views are workable (and my experience
would seem to prove so) there are still important factors at
work in the displacing of the working classes in Lambeth, as
elsewhere. Thus, railway companies have proved to be
important factors in the Lambeth Inner Districts, from a
point of view of lessened house accommodation, and consequent
overcrowding - large areas having been, and still being
from time to time, voluntarily or compulsorily absorbed,
slowly, but none the less surely, in connection with improvement
and extension schemes. Then again, the necessary
extensions of business premises (factories, workshops, etc.)
in the Inner Districts of Lambeth, have led, and are still
leading, to the voluntary closing and demolition of houses,
followed by the displacement of tenants, together with consequent
overcrowding of the houses in the immediate neighbourhoods.
Finally, displacements may take place in connection
with Metropolitan Improvement schemes (formation of new
streets, widenings of approaches to bridges, &c.), but in this
respect Lambeth has not been, as yet, much troubled.
In the above-mentioned cases of areas compulsorily cleared,