THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

53

TENTH  EXCUSE
That  a  Housing  Bureaucracy  is  Ignorant,  Idle
and  Expensive,
ELEVENTH  EXCUSE
That  Control  by  Local  Authorities  is  necessarily
Slow  and  Inefficient,
TWELFTH  EXCUSE
That  the  Architects  are  mainly  responsible  for
the  Failure  of  the  Government  Housing  Scheme.
These  three  errors  may  be  analysed  together.  They
are  the  usual  case  put  forward  by  the  Federation  of
Building  Trade  Employers,  Chambers  of  Commerce,
the  National  Union  of  Manufacturers,  the  Federation
of  British  Industries,  the  Middle  Classes’  Union,  the
Daily  Mail,  “  Taxpayer,”  “  Mother  of  Seven,”  the
Carlton  Club,  the  Anti-Socialist  Union,  and  Mr.  Horatio
Bottomley.  The  twelfth  excuse  is  the  private  property
and  invention  of  Sir  Charles  Ruthen,  Director  General
of  Housing,  political  ally  of  Sir  Alfred  Mond,  and—
until  he  brought  this  charge  against  his  own  profession,
but  not  afterwards—President  of  the  Society  of
Architects.
“  Business  men,”  all  of  them  claim  to  be—except
perhaps  "  Mother  of  Seven,”  and  hers  is  generally
the  temporarily  assumed  title  of  a  local  tradesman
who  objects  to  paying  his  income  tax.