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at last, be purchased by the Local Authority "they must apply it
for the construction of new dwellings, or the improvement of
existing ones, for the working classes, or for the opening out and
widening of courts and alleys"—all very good purposes, but, as a
rule, unremunerative. In the last extremity, should the Local
Authority neglect or refuse to act, the Metropolitan Board of Works,
on appeal by the Board of Guardians, or the owner of a neighbouringproperty,
may step in and do what is necessary at the expense of
the Local Authority. But the Board has never exercised this power,
a fact from which it may be fairly inferred that they have not a
high opinion of the practical value of the Acts. The Commissioners
recommend that the provision requiring the Local Authority
to purchase, should be repealed. But this is not enough. Appeals
likewise should be abolished, together with the restrictions on the
action of the Local Authority in regard to the future use of the
lands.
As regards Cross's Acts, which "deal with whole areas where
the houses are so structurally defective as to be incapable of repair,
and so ill-placed with reference to each other as to require, to
bring them up to a proper sanitary standard, nothing short of
demolition and re-construction," the expense of putting them in
force, over and above any possible recoupment, sufficiently accounts
for the reluctance of the Local Authority (the Metropolitan Board
of Works) to take up fresh "schemes," even under the amending
Act of 1882. What has been done, hitherto, under these Acts is
but as a drop in the bucket, and yet the eleven schemes carried
through, and dealing with a very limited total area, have involved
a nett loss to the ratepayers of £1,250,000, of which £400,000 is
estimated to be due to excessive valuation of property, which was
so bad that demolition was the only possible remedy for the evils
to which it gave occasion. These Acts will remain practically
inoperative until the law makes it an offence to let unhealthy
dwellings, and gives to the Local Authority the power to take
possession of unsanitary property at the market value of the land,
so that "improvement schemes" maybe carried out at the cost of
the parties whose neglect has made them necessary, and not, as