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113
third of the cost of acquiring the sites was due to excessive valuation
of property so bad that demolition was the only possible
remedy for the evils to which it gave occasion. Provision
against a repetition of this excessive compensation has been
attempted to be made in amending Acts passed in 1879, 1882,
and 1885.Under Cross's Acts the owners of insanitary dwellings
have hitherto received more than the fair market value of their
property. In this respect, they have been better off than the
owners of houses dealt with under Torrens's Acts, for these may
be required to demolish them without compensation; a course
for which, but too often, justification might have been found in
the condition of houses dealt with under Cross's Acts.
THE COUNTY COUNCIL AND THE HOUSING OF
THE WORKING CLASSES.
The Housing of the Working Classes Committee of the
Council are desirous of working Cross's Acts and Shaftesbury's
Acts together, by building lodging-houses under the lastnamed
Acts upon sites cleared under the first-named Acts—a
desirable course, doubtless, if the necessary consent of the Home
Secretary can be obtained. In my last annual report I observed
that it would be well should it be possible for the Council to
enter into competition with the owners of insanitary property, by
providing decent homes for the working classes at a moderate
but remunerative rent under Lord Shaftesbury's Acts. The
Council shortly afterwards (July 2nd) agreed to a report of the
Corporate Property, Charities, and Endowment Committee, in
which the Housing of the Working Classes Committee concurred,
recommending the Council to build houses at a cost of
£40,000, to accommodate 1800 persons of the working classes,
on a portion of the land at Deptford (" Hughes-fields area "), six or
seven acres in extent, acquired by the late Metropolitan Board of
*Such provision probably would not have proved very efficacious, but the
proposals of Mr. Ritchie in the Bill referred to in the previous footnote (at
page 112) are likely to be effectual.