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177
Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of
the Working Classes.—In connection with the subject of
registration of houses let in lodgings, a full summary of the
Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for enquiring into the
Housing of the Working Classes, was given in my Annual
Report for 1884-5 (page 184). The report itself did scant
justice to the work of the sanitary authorities, which, though
carried on under pressure of many difficulties, has had the effect
of making London the cleanest, the best paved, the best drained,
the best lighted, the safest and the healthiest of great cities.
The existing system of local government may not be perfect,
but under it much good work has been done; work that is not
likely to be surpassed under any change in the form of local
government. The Loudon County Council, by appointing a
Housing of the Working Classes Committee, and in other
ways, e.g., by putting Cross's Acts into operation again, has
shewn its interest in this question. To what extent it will
be enabled to solve the tremendous difficulties by which the
question 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 sanitary condition; that it is fit to live in;"
which I hoped would "before long be established as a principle