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158
The labours of the Commission have hitherto borne little
fruit. The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, brought in a
Public Health (Metropolis) Bill in the Session of 1885, which,
as a measure for consolidating, with some few useful amendments,
existing scattered statutes, fourteen in number—all
bearing more or less on the question under considerationwould
have proved useful to Sanitary Authorities and sanitary
officials alike. But there was not time to pass the Bill. Your
Vestry having requested Lord Salisbury to reintroduce the
Bill in 1887, his lordship expressed his fear that the chances of
any such measure becoming law are at present very remote.
As already stated (page 130), the County Council have
appointed a Housing of the Working Classes Committee, and
have shewn in other ways, e.g., by putting Cross's Acts into
operation again (vide page 131), their interest in this subject.
To what extent they will be enabled to solve the tremendous
difficulties by which it is encompassed, time only can determine.
UNHEALTHY HOUSES.
By section 13 of the Housing of the Working Classes
(England) Bill, 1885, a measure introduced by Lord Salisbury
with a view to give effect to recommendations of the Royal
Commission, it was proposed to enact that, in any contract for
letting an unfurnished house for human habitation, there should
be implied a condition that the house was in all respects
reasonably fit for habitation; and that in the event of a breach
of such condition, any inmate of such house who suffered any
loss by injury to health or otherwise, in consequence, should be
entitled to recover damages from the person responsible for such
breach. The section was in accord with my proposal (in 1884)
that " there should be an implied warranty when a house is let,
that it is in a proper sauitary condition ; that it is fit to live in
which I hoped would " before long be established as a principle
of English law." Unfortunately, the section was altered in