THE HOUSING QUESTION 
4i 
1921, the Ministry of Health were permitting Local 
Authorities to enter into contracts for subsidised 
parlour-type houses for £950—and often more. At 
the end of that month Dr. Addison struck. He 
refused from that date to approve prices for such 
houses at more than £800. 
Within a fortnight this decision became known to 
building contractors throughout the country, and by the 
middle of March tenders were being sent in freely for the 
same type of house at about £795 • 
Had the output of Labour so suddenly increased as 
to account for this self-denying ordinance ? Of course 
not. Output, it is true, was increasing and had been 
doing so for many months, but not by jumps of £150 
in a fortnight, which would represent a suddenly 
increased output of some 4° P er cent. It is as clear 
as daylight that, for months before the Addisonian axe 
fell, builders had been pocketing a nice little sum per 
house, approaching £150, in addition to the fair normal 
profit, which they no doubt calculated to obtain on 
their £800 tenders in March, 1921. This extraordinary 
incident has never been referred to by the Minister, 
and the public know nothing of it. 
It is astonishing, in view of the foregoing, to find 
the important Departmental Committee on the High 
Cost of Building Working-Class Dwellings (Cd. 1447) 
report in August, 1921, as follows :— 
" Although there are no doubt cases of builders having obtained 
favourable contracts, yielding more than normal profit, we think 
that this condition must be exceptional. . . . There is certainly