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have their being in one room because they like it. On the contrary,
my personal experience is that they dislike it intensely.
They live in one room because they cannot afford to live in
two. Originally, many of them owned two or even three rooms;
but they could not afford to pay the rent, and so they let their
additional rooms, crowding into the accommodation which is
so eloquently expressed in the Table given to us by the last
census.
The whole problem of housing is essentially one of economics.
Given no unemployment and no unusual poverty, the "housing
problem" would largely solve itself, as it did in pre-war days—
never completely perhaps, but far more satisfactorily than at
present. In time, no doubt, the declining birth-rate will help
to diminish the moral overcrowding of houses, just as it has
given additional accommodation in our schools, and the new
scheme of the Town Council will certainly diminish the amount
of sub-letting in roads like Wightman Road and the turnings off
it, temporarily at any rate.
There appear to be two methods of attacking the problems
of overcrowding. The one is to deal effectively with the present
economic situation and to provide work and wages for all: that
is not the business of the Public Health Department.
The other method is to prosecute those who are living in
overcrowded conditions. Although under the Public Health
Act, 1875, prosecutions can be instituted for overcrowding, it
would be, in my opinion, most subversive to the public health
to take such proceedings. If an overcrowded family were to
be prosecuted and fined, the children would have to go without
margarine on their bread; for the fine would add penury to
poverty. So during the year, although many instances of overcrowding
have come to my personal notice, I have recommended
prosecutions in none of them; but rather have done what I was
able by peaceful persuasion to urge the persons concerned to
find some other and more suitable accommodation.
This solution of the problem of housing, of sub-letting and
of the lodger is an essential in public health reform. Dirt,
disease, and especially infectious disease, flourish under these
conditions. Of this, however, we may be assured that while the