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(e.) The enactment of statutory provisions, with safeguards
against evasion, which would ensure
accommodation for the families of workmen displaced
from their dwellings either for the purpose
of public improvement, or in the course of individual
or collective enterprise.
(/.) The elevation of the workman to a standpoint
of greater advantage in regard to foreign competition,
by a system of technical education.
The compulsory provision of a space in the vicinity of the
newly-built house, whether adjacent and enclosed, or upon a
combined scheme where a plot would be the common
recreation ground for many houses, is a reform which is
demanded by the abuses which are exceedingly prevalent
in the occupation of land by building. The present
Building Act does not seriously face a condition which at
times is so palpable in its evil effects that it becomes a
public scandal.
It might be thought that a provision, which has for its
object the enlargement of the area dedicated to the purpose
of individual occupation, whether that area be covered or
open, would have the effect of increasing the relative amount
chargeable to the builder or the rent levied upon the tenant.
It might be urged that a piece of land which now costs a
thousand pounds, and upon which four houses may be
reared, would after an Act had been passed which limited
the builder to the erection of two houses, still cost the same
amount.
The circumstances connected with the sale of land do not
however warrant that conclusion. The value of land rises or
falls in accordance with the capabilities which it offers for
the erection of many or few houses. The market value of
land offering a site for the erection of four houses, which now
stands at a thousand pounds, would immediately decline to