112 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
Such maintenance after sale is, of course, impossible 
and he must have known it. 
In 1920, the Government proposed to increase the 
erection of working-class houses by giving a subsidy 
to private builders. What was the result ? By the 
Minister’s admission at least 70 per cent, of these houses 
are now occupied by well-to-do people. 
The pressure put on Local Authorities by the Trea 
sury to increase rent has, where it has been given way 
to, had just the same effect. The working classes go 
out and the middle classes take the houses. If the 
present Government can bring it about, the great 
Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1919 will have 
had as its result a subsidy to the middle classes or to 
speculative builders who can buy back the subsidised 
house at half the price for which they or their friends 
built them. 
On 20th July, 1921, the Minister told the House of 
Commons that 27,000 acres had been acquired through 
out England and Wales for housing schemes, of which 
only 20,000 were needed for the schemes he was pre 
pared to approve. Much of the remaining 7,000 acres 
have been fully developed with roads and sewers and 
are now to be left derelict, the grass growing over the 
land and roads alike. Hardly a policy for a Government 
professing economy to follow. 
While members of the Government were making the 
protestations of innocence which we have recorded 
above, their Minister of Health was hard at work 
“ stopping the train.” In January, 1921, further