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  Authority ­
  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