38

THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

As  regards  the  former,  what  again  are  the  facts  ?
The  facts  to-day  are  these  :  that  whereas  in  August,
1921,  148,026  skilled  operatives  were  being  employed
on  Council  houses,  this  figure  had  dropped  in  June,
1922,  to  66,651.  What  had  become  of  the  other
81,000  ?  Had  they  gone  to  private  building  ?  Everyone ­
  knows  that  there  is  less  private  building  than

months  ago.  What  are  the  81,000  doing  ?  d
They  are  mostly  drawing  unemployment  allowance.  ti
They  are  costing  this  country  about  £700,000  a  month.  b
In  addition  to  this  it  is  possible  that  the  actual  number  \
of  unemployed  building  trade  operatives  immensely  v
exceeds  these  81,000,  for  the  Housing  Schemes  of  Local
Authorities  have  probably  never  employed  more  than  /
a  fraction  of  the  operatives,  and  it  is  unquestionable  ii
that  private  building  has  also  declined,  probably  to  (

a  greater  extent  proportionally  than  has  Housing.
The  number  of  operatives  in  the  building  trade  in
England  and  Wales  is  between  eight  and  nine  hundred
thousand.
Last  autumn  the  Prime  Minister  announced  that  the
Cabinet  affirmed  that  the  building  trade  would  be  kept
employed  up  to  the  limit  of  its  capacity  in  the  Housing
Schemes  of  Local  Authorities.  Let  us  again  quote  i
the  oft-quoted  words  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George  in  the  debate  ;
in  the  Commons  on  the  21st  July,  1921,  when  he  in-  1
duced  members  to  vote  for  the  policy  of  approving
no  more  housing  contracts  :—  ]
"  The  present  commitments  will  fill  up  the  building  trade  for
18  months—in  Scotland,  I  am  told,  for  two  years.  What  will