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149
bulk of the people, they admit, must live in existing houses,
and be dependent on others for the enforcement of sanitary
conditions. No one can doubt the earnestness or good intentions
of the Council, and the Public Health and Housing
Committee, but they are now realizing what Sanitary Authorities
of older date, and their officials, know but too well—the
colossal difficulties in the way of providing decent homes for
the poor, at any reasonable or remunerative rate.
"The Council have completed and opened the Model
Lodging House in Parker Street, in the St, Giles' district, of
which 1 gave a description in my last Annual Report (page
157).
MIGRATION AS A REMEDY EOR OVERCROWDING.
By the Housing of the Working Classes Act, the Council,
with the sanction of the Home Secretary, already accorded,
are enabled to erect, purchase, or hire, houses, &c., without, as
well as within, the Metropolis. The question will naturally
arise, therefore, as I observed in my Report for 1889, whether
something might not be done to remedy the evils of overcrowding,
by schemes providing for the migration of numbers
of the people to woikmen'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 the
provisions of what were formerly known as 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,
* "The Metropolitan Board of Works carried through 22 schemes, whereby
59 acres of land were acquired and cleared, on which accommodation has been
provided for 38,231 persons. The amoumt thus expended by the Board, in giving
effect to Cross's Acts, exceeded a million and a half sterling (or about £40 per
head); this being irrespective of the outlay on Model Dwellings erected, on the
cleared sites, by such bodies as the Peabody Trustees" (Annual Report for
1888-89, page 130).