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and the improvement of others, would be an action which, though
perhaps shewing on paper an immediate annua! loss of a few
pounds at most, would, nevertheless be of real economic value in
the influence it would have on the district generally and on the
status of surrounding properties particularly.
It is patent for instance that the condition of the Malthouse
Area is in great part responsible for the unlet condition of business
premises in the immediate vicinity, and consequent loss to the rates.
There is no doubt, moreover, that delay in dealing with the matter
will only mean, in the future, greater expenditure and less good
results.
Great improvement has taken place in the condition of the
houses in the Westfields of late years.
It has been possible to deal with these houses under the
Public Health Acts, and the work of flag-paving and channelling
the roads, together with the incidental removal of grave defects in
the old surface water gullies and sewers, has been of the greatest
practical good.
This area, ten years ago the least healthy, is now, considering
the character of the population, the most healthy part of the
district, and has been during 1908 almost entirely free from the
diphtheria and sore throat formerly endemic there.
Similar attention is absolutely necessary however to the
street condition of White Hart Lane and other parts of the district.
The supervision of the erection of new houses is, in this
district, entirely in the hands of the Surveyor's Department.
For some years past the drains of newly-erected houses have
been tested under water on the completion of the house, as well as
on the first laying of the drains, and this practice has given excellent
results.