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based upon the assumption that the poor huddle together in
dark and unwholesome rooms in fulfilment of an unrestricted
choice. It is true that a stringent local application of this
Act secures a semblance of a definite local improvement;
but, in reality, the body of the inhabitants is not regenerated,
but its poorer members are displaced. Those whom poverty
had coerced into close occupation before still remain in a
condition which forbids them other than overcrowded occupation
now. Necessity, in the vast majority of the cases, is
the compulsory agent. The enforcement of the 35th Section
may drive the impoverished family from district to district,
from parish to parish, or ultimately from a position of selfreliance
in the tenement to that of dependence in the
workhouse; but the causes of overcrowding remain unaffected,
notwithstanding the most energetic and stringent
application of the measure.
The Royal Commission recognize in overcrowding the root
of the difficulties with which they must contend when
they state: "In considering what are the effects, moral
and material, of the present condition of the housing
of the working classes, especially in the Metropolis, it will
be convenient to deal with overcrowding as a centre evil
around which most of the others group themselves."
But it is evident that the Commissioners strangely overrate
the efficiency of the powers vested in the Local Authority
when they declare that half the difficulty of the question
would have been met had these powers been administered
with intelligence and disinterested energy; and further, when
they place upon record an opinion that "there has been
failure in administration rather than in legislation."
These opinions cannot, however, be maintained in the face
of the demonstrated facts. It has been shown, bearing upon
the subject of over-crowding, that by four Acts of Parliament
alone have powers been conferred upon the Vestry.