THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

23

The  Minister  of  Health  in  the  debate  in  the  House
of  Commons,  on  21st  July,  1921,  when  the  Government
stopped  their  housing  scheme,  said  :—
"  Our  needs  are  very  much  what  we  want  to  make  them.  For
instance,  possibly  we  should  all  like  to  live  in  a  very  much  better
house  than  we  have  got."
One  feels  that  such  a  sentiment,  if  the  Minister  would
advance  it  at  a  meeting  of  slum-dwellers,  would  greatly
relieve  their  discontent  and  would  enable  them  to
realise  that  even  Sir  Alfred  Mond  has  to  live  in  a  house
which  is  not  nearly  as  good  as  he  would  like.  Mr.
Pecksniff  could  not  have  put  it  more  clearly.
And,  after  all,  have  we  not  grown  into  the  greatest
nation  in  the  world  without  all  this  molly  coddling  ?
Did  not  our  population  pour  forth  from  the  garrets
of  Bethnal  Green,  the  back-to-back  houses  of  Leeds,
and  the  tenements  of  Glasgow,  to  do  battle  with  the
Hun,  and  did  we  not  win  the  war  ?
What  do  our  people  want  with  gardens  and  porches,
and  parlours  ?  Baths  !  They  are  only  used  for  coals
and  cauliflowers.  Drains!  They  generally  involve
smells  :  better  do  without  them  as  our  fathers  did.
Our  needs  are  only  what  we  make  them.
These  great  “  wens  "  of  England,  as  Cobbett  called
them,  with  their  strength  belching  forth  out  of  their
chimneys  and  lying  like  a  pall  between  the  blue  vault
of  heaven  and  the  children  of  men  :  these  human
warrens  where  stand  the  houses  of  massed  humanity,
40  or  50  to  an  acre  :  close  and  neighbourly  no  doubt,
and  handy  to  the  factory  and  workshop:  these,  says