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Council of the Acts in question. These Acts enable the Council
(as local authority) to erect, purchase, or hire houses, etc., either
within or without the Metropolis. The question will naturally
arise, therefore, as I observed in my last annual report, whether
something might not be done to remedy the evils of overcrowding,
by schemes providing for the migration of numbers of the people
to workmen's towns a little way out of London, where land is less
costly—a plan which, with a service of cheap trains, should be
practicable. The carrying out of Cross's Acts in London must
needs be a costly procedure at all times, and probably much more
so than schemes for migration; which, by lessening the present
excessive demand for lodgings, might lead to reduction in rents,
and thus enable the poorer classes to obtain more and better
accommodation. A rent equal to that paid for a model lodging in
London would probably provide a remunerative return for the
outlay on a cottage and garden within a moderate train-distance
of the centre of the Metropolis. By a large scheme for migration,
overcrowding might be diminished, and with it preventible disease
resulting from this, the most perilous of insanitary conditions.
The model dwellings erected on the sites cleared under Cross's
Acts are not tenanted to any large extent by the poorest grades
of the labouring classes, those who have been displaced by the
clearings. Clerks, and superior artizans able to command
constant work, commonly occupy these healthy homes. Plenty
others of the like class would doubtless be forthcoming were the
accommodation greatly extended. These, however, are the
classes for whom it might be practicable to provide out of London.
Emigration would seem, at first sight, to be an obvious means
of reducing overcrowding, and, the Government have appointed
a Committee to inquire into various schemes which have been
proposed of State-aided emigration from congested districts of the
United Kingdom (London included) to British Colonies and elsewhere;
to examine the results of schemes that have had a
practical trial, and to report generally on the means and conditions
under which such emigration may be best carried out, and the