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UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS. 17
established in St. James's. The solution of the whole metropolitan
problem, in fact, must be arrived at on these lines, and the
wages of the workers will have to be adjusted to the market
rates—just as, in the City of London, the pay of the clerk and
warehouseman has had to provide for a suburban dwelling. Upon
that basis the axioms of political economy will not be outraged,
building by means of commercial enterprise will not be stopped,
and the matter will work out to a sound result.
In St. James's some special conditions, which do not exist
generally in the Metropolis, should also be adverted to. To a
great extent these special conditions have their analogue in the
older City of London. In the hinterland of Cheapside a series of
narrow and tortuous lanes are found—lanes which are practically
known only to the habitues of the City, and in which the stranger
loses himself. Similar conditions exist in St. James's. Those
conditions were described in my Report for the year 1896
(pages 21, 22, and 23) as follows :—
"If a line be drawn from St. James's Palace diagonally
across the parish to the junction of Oxford Street and Wardour
Street, it will be seen that south of Eegent's Quadrant the
line traverses a rich and fashionable district, while north of
Eegent's Quadrant the line traverses a labyrinth of small
streets through which ordinary strangers would be unable to
find their way. This northern area is covered to a great extent
by old houses which have passed into the hands of tenementmongers,
and are let out as lodgings to the working classes
who are dependent upon the splendid shops, and busy
warehouses of Regent Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly and St.
James's Street. In these old tenement houses the rents paid
by the working classes are high while the conditions under
which they live are bad. The houses are largely held by
tenement-mongers on short leases—a tenure which practically
shuts out both freeholder and leaseholder from re-building or
substantial improvement. The houses are cramped — often
with basement buildings covering their entire sites; routes
through the district are tortuous and the streets are narrow.
These houses, in fact, are old-fashioned gentlemen's dwellinghouses
which have been degraded and cut up into slices, and
sub-let as lodgings for the working classes. Sanitary work, in
the way of reconstructing drainage, the provision of additional
water-closets, the repression of overcrowding, and the enforcement
of periodical cleansings, has now been pushed with
increasing severity for many years — as fast as public
opinion and new Public Health Acts have supported and given
power to the Vestry and its Sanitary Officers. In this quarter
the need for wholesale warehouses and workshops subservient