THE HOUSING QUESTION 
3i 
or because—often one regrets to say from interested 
and party motives—they do not wish to carry them 
out and desire an excuse for not building more houses. 
In short, the rents must, ipso facto, be such as work 
ing-class people can afford to pay. When Sir Alfred 
Mond spoke as quoted above he was permitting 
himself to talk nonsense. 
It is true that emissaries from the Treasury have 
frequently informed Local Councils that if they do not 
fix rents high enough they will lose some of the subsidy. 
But this is ordinary bluff and should be disregarded. 
Government Departments often bluff. As has already 
been made clear, excessive rent is not legally enforceable 
by the Government. 
As things are there is a tendency to allow the working 
classes to be defrauded of these houses, which by Act 
of Parliament were intended for them, and to allow 
the houses to become the residences of quite another 
class. It suits the Treasury’s book, but it is unjust, 
contrary to the will of Parliament, and ought to be 
stopped. 
Mr. Inskip, a Conservative Coalition Member for 
Bristol, said in the House of Commons, in the Housing 
Debate, on the nth May, 1921 :— 
“ What dismays me— I have made enquiries in my own con 
stituency—is that I am very doubtful whether the right people 
are to occupy the houses. . . . They were intended for the 
ex-service man, in the first place. He was generally the unskilled 
man, who gave up his own house and put his wife and children 
in the house of relatives, and now that he has returned he requires 
a house to live in. . . ,