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UNFAVOURABLE CONDITIONS. 21
and most valuable site, remain as described in my Report for
the year 1896 (pages 21, 22, and 23), and again in my Report
for the year 1898 (pages 33, 34, and 35). Rebuilding continues
to go on upon the old streets, and each year it will become
more and more costly to open up and fully utilize this important
and very valuable area."
Nothing has yet been done.
It only remains for me to add that a new street, prolonging
the Haymarket northwards into Poland Street, would transform
this hinterland of St. James's, and at the same time would effect
a great metropolitan improvement.
The important and valuable site now occupied by tbe old
Union Workhouse should be sold to pay for the improvement.
It should be utilized as a site for a block of chamber-master
workshops, with electric light and electric power for the small lathes,
sewing-machines, and other light tools used by the jewellers, tailors,
court dress makers, and other workers for the local retail
trades of St. James's. These with " cheap trains and trams," and
model restaurants for mid-day meals, would rapidly deplete the
overcrowded centres. All these old houses in St. James's are
destined to the same end as if they were in the City of London.
They are destined to undergo demolition, and to be reconstructed
as warehouses and workshops subservient to the retail trade of the
St. James's centre. The only question is whether they shall be
re-constructed upon the mould of the narrow and tortuous streets
which constitute the present hinterland east of Regent Street, or
be laid out upon a plan convenient for the purposes of a great
trade centre, and conducive to the sanitation of a great city.
In addition to this very valuable area now encumbered by the
old union workhouse and its appendages, there is in the very
centre of this district a secondary area of considerable size
encumbered by an old brewery. Coarse factories, such as
breweries, should be squeezed out of the central parts of London.
They defile the atmosphere ; they bring a vast number of brewers'
drays, and other such vehicles into the narrow streets; they
overcrowd the centres with workmen who would be much better
off in communities of suburban houses around their workplaces.
The old factories would be replaced in the suburbs with advantage
by new factories built on modern plans, and with up-to-date
improvements which would cheapen and improve production.
If all such factories in Central London were rated and taxed on the
maximum possible value of the large sites they occupy, a useful
stimulus would be applied, and many such sites would come into
the market without direct parliamentary compulsion.