View report page

121
whis0ky; and the proper housing of the local operatives is a constant
problem in the district, not to speak of the fact that its nearness to the
tram-routes and the Thames bridges makes it popular with the working
clssses generally. To this need the Commissioners could contribute in
various ways. They could let large portions of the property as sites for
monster workmen's dwellings, taking, say two-thirds of the market price,
in order that the lessee might bring the rents within the possibilities of the
workers, and even, if necessary, lending the lessee most of the necessary
building funds at a small interest. This is the history of Stanhope and
Mowbray buildings, the two tenement blocks in Redcross Street, Southwark.
the leases of which belong respectively to the Victoria Dwellings
Association and the Metropolitan Industrial Dwellings Company. Undoubtedly,
if this had been done, most of the people out of the small
horses could have been accommodated in new tenement blocks, and the
Commissioners would still have had a large portion of the site to dispose
of to the best commercial advantage.
But they have long seen that the giant tenement-block has great
disadvantages, quite apart from the outrage that results to the landscape.
Whatever the financial arrangements under which they are built, these
blocks generally become the homes of people in rather better circumstances
than those displaced by the demolition of the slum houses, while
the time occupied in erecting them means that in any case the displacement
of the original inhabitants is attended with the maximum of discomfort.
Therefore, the Commissioners, of course at a further sacrifice of return 011
every acre of their land, have for some time leant to the plan of building
t mailer tenement houses, and even cottages, on their London estates. Thus
ten years ago, in Garden Street, and Dorset Street, Westminster, and
Orange Street, and Pepper Street, Southwark, they took to building
cottages of four, five or six rooms each, and tenement houses let out in
two-room suites. In the New Cut, Lambeth, they are now completing a
large rebuilding scheme, the figures of which are worth giving, as the
same plan is to be followed in the case of the Walworth Property. In the
New Cut there are 6 five-room and. 23 four-room cottages; while there are
also tenement houses affording 177 three-room suites and 50 two-room
suites. Thus on the New Cut site, once a byword for filth and congestion,
there are 257 separate holdings, making a tatal of 754 rooms. The
Commissioners have, therefore, already entered into contracts for erecting
on a portion of the Walworth property, at a cost of £26,850, 51 cottages,
eight cottage flats, containing 16 suites of three rooms and a washhouse
each, and two three-storeyed tenement houses. On the rest of the