THE HOUSING QUESTION 
81 
life a»d death, of decency and indecency, because you cannot 
have decent people without decent houses. I do say we must 
approach this question, not from the point of view of pounds, 
shillings and pence merely, but from the point of view of humanity 
also." 
In August, 1921, a woman left her miserable 
temporary shack on the mountain-side at Pontypool 
to throw herself and her baby into a pond, saying she 
was tired to death of the struggle for life in such 
wretched surroundings. 
Near Newquay, a man with six children had to house 
his wife in a canvas-covered dug-out in a wild and 
deserted valley while she brought forth her seventh- 
born. There was no room for her even at the inn. 
The Minister was appealed to with a view to allowing 
the Local Authority to put up an Army hut for their 
dwelling, but he refused. 
The Medical Officer of Health recently reported that 
at Kemerton in the Rural District of Tewkesbury, 
a woman, who was being confined, had to have an 
umbrella held over her all the time, owing to the terrible 
condition of the cottage. She cannot get another 
house, as the Minister refuses further houses for any 
rural area. 
But why multiply instances ? We house human 
beings in England as we would not house animals or 
even machines. Every elector knows the terrible 
circumstances in which so many of our fellow-creatures 
live, in town and country alike. The Government in 
1919 solemnly undertook to sweep away the slums and 
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