THE HOUSING QUESTION 
77 
Further than this, the Government, on 14th July, 
1921, announced to the House of Commons that in 
future they would only give £200,000 a year towards 
the deficiency of all the Local Authorities in the 
Country together, in respect of improvement of slum 
areas. 
£200,000 a year! This meant practically the 
repeal of the 1919 Act by administrative order, as 
far as slum clearance was concerned. The " first 
point of attack ” of which the King spoke in the 
quotation at the beginning of this Part has definitely 
been stopped. Instead Sir Alfred Mond recommends 
Local Authorities to induce owners to patch up existing 
tenements—the larger part of them little better than 
hovels. 
The Ministry now find themselves unable to approve 
slum clearance schemes because they cannot find 
schemes small enough to come within this precious 
figure ! 
The usual excuse offered for the inaction of the 
Ministry up to now in respect of slum clearance is that 
slum dwellers cannot be cleared out until new houses 
have been built to which they can remove. The 
entire insincerity of this argument can be shewn by the 
following considerations :— 
(a) The Ministry have discouraged Local Authorities 
from even preparing and submitting plans for slum 
clearance. It may be taken that the period which 
would generally elapse between first consideration 
of a slum-clearance proposal by the technical officers