THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

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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  seventhborn.
  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
F