9 6 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
write, or get a still more influential friend to write, 
a pleading and private letter to the Minister or one of his 
higher officials. The success of these efforts was 
usually remarkable. Very rarely in such cases was the 
Local Authority’s compulsory order confirmed. 
In other ways too the present Government and its 
Ministers of Health have proved respecters of persons. 
There is a well-known member of the House of Lords, 
a considerable political personage, who built a house 
at the time when the Government was giving a subsidy 
to private builders. Unfortunately, this house was 
not large enough to comply with the Ministry’s schedule 
of requirements as to size of rooms, etc., and the Local 
Authority’s surveyor was unable to grant the certificate, 
without which the subsidy was not payable. So the 
noble owner, who had already begun the house without 
notifying the Council as required by their by-laws, 
called upon the Minister, who directed the Local 
Authority to grant the certificate. The Local Author 
ity naturally asked what was to be done in the case of 
other less aristocratic house-builders whose certificates 
had been refused on similar grounds. No reply was 
given to this, but the Minister proceeded to reduce 
the requirements of his Department’s schedule in order, 
one must suppose, to meet the case of the impoverished 
nobleman. Even then difficulties arose, as the new 
schedule was not retrospective and therefore did not 
cover the case of the unhappy peer; nor were the 
bedrooms large enough to comply with the reduced 
schedule. However, a little thing like that does not