View report page

16
these difficulties and to provide remedies. The Committee, presided
over by Sir R. A. Cross, M.P., ex-Home Secretary, obtained
a considerable amount of evidence from Medical Officers, Surveyors,
Philanthropists, and a few provincial Town Clerks, but very little
from Metropolitan Parochial Officers. The Committee has made a
report suggesting certain means for avoiding preliminary expenses
and removing certain restrictions as to the number of new dwellings
to be provided in the place of those removed. The report suggests
that small areas containing not more than fifteen houses should be
dealt with by the Local Vestries, and the larger ones by the
Metropolitan Board. The report also recommends that the Vestries
should be urged to more vigorous action with regard to Torrens's
Acts, implying of course that there has not been hitherto a due
amount of vigilance displayed. A Bill has been introduced by the
Government giving effect to some of these suggestions, but how far
it will meet the requirements it would be perhaps unwise at present
to say. It may give the Metropolitan Board more scope for action
and lessen to a degree the expense. But even admitting that the
principle of buying up worthless property at the public expense is
a sound one (which is a very contentious point) it is quite certain
that the expense of working the Acts by the Metropolitan Board
must always be very great, and entail a heavy charge upon the
ratepayers. As regards the Vestries and District Boards it is
certain—and this is said not in a spirit of antagonism to the
principle which is pro tantum accepted—the Acts must be
practically a dead letter. The Act of 1879 provides that if the
Vestry makes an order that an owner shall execute certain works
upon his houses or demolish them, he may, within three months,
require the Vestry to purchase the property at arbitration prices.
This of course is just what nine out of ten owners would do, and it
is also what in nine out of ten cases the Vestries would not do; the
consequence is that the order will not be made. The attention of
the Home Secretary has been called to this defect in the Act, but it
is too much to hope that it will be remedied.
A more minute criticism of the principles and details of the
several Acts would hardly be in place in this report, but the