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there are other elements on which the economic value of the working population
depends; and foremost among them stand health and long life."
It will be found that intellectual improvement will keep pace with physical
improvement, and the scenes of brutality and violence which thirty years
ago were of such frequent occurrence in the streets and public houses in
London are now comparatively rare.
Public Traffic Improvement versus Public Health Improvement.
The following schemes which succeed each other, and are set forth on
page 873 of the Minutes of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and dated
20th December, 1878, show in the first table the amount proposed to be
expended for health purposes, and in the second the amount required for
affording greater facilities for traffic. The net cost of the one, by which all
London will be benefitted, is estimated at £584,487 ; while the other, by
which comparatively few persons will be benefitted, amounts to £1,615,460.
Both these schemes, I may add, have been made compulsory on the Metropolitan
Board of Works, under Acts of the Legislature, to carry out. With
regard to the Act relating to the improvement of the dwellings of the labouring
classes, I regret that the Metropolitan Board of Works were not among its
most active promoters, for no measure that they have carried into effect
is likely to prove of so much benefit to the public in a moral, physical, and,
I may add, educational point of view, as that for the providing of better
habitations for the poorer classes. Mr. Cross' Act will form an important
event in the history of sanitary science.
The public is deeply indebted to the Home Secretary for his exertions in
thus endeavouring to benefit the public health. It must not, however, be
forgotten that much of the labour of obtaining the requisite information
respecting the practicability of such a scheme is due to the Special
Dwellings Committee, which was appointed by the Charity Organisation
Society. This Committee held several meetings, at each of which I was
present, which were most ably presided over by Lord Napier and Ettrick,
whose name should always be associated with this Act.
Dwelling House Improvement Fund.
"Under the Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act of
1875 (38 & 39 Vic., cap. 36), it is obligatory upon the Board to establish
this Fund, to which all receipts under the Act shall be carried and all
expenses charged. The money required to establish the fund and any
deficiency arising from time to time are to be supplied either by money
borrowed or 'local rateand the 'local rate' is not the Board's Consolidated
Bate, but a distinct portion of the Board's Consolidated Bate to which
the City of London is not liable."