n8 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
"... I listened to the Right Hon. Gentleman’s [Sir Alfred 
Mond] speech with great interest and a considerable degree of gj 
admiration. But does he not think, on reflection, that he put 
the case for the Government a little too high ? He denied 
emqhatically that the Government had ever made a promise 111 
to puild 500,000 houses. I have not the actual statement, but 
I am sure he would not deceive the House as to the actual words 
that were used. But the broad fact was that at the beginning 
of that year the Government went to the country and said, 
' We are going to regenerate this country. We are going to make 
it quite a different place.’ There were all sorts of phrases used. 
They then called particular attention to the housing difficulty 
as one of the main things they were going to deal with. They 
put the lack of houses at 500,000—some put it higher—and 
undoubtedly they held out to the country—no one can doubt 
it—the expectation, whether it was a promise or not, that they 
were going to provide 500,000 houses, because they thought 
that was the number necessary. . . 
Mr. Inskip, a Conservative Coalitionist, a Member for 
Bristol, said in the same debate :— 
. I hardly like to go into some parts of my own con 
stituency, not because I am afraid, but because of the hopes that 
I held out in my speeches during the election. My Right Hon. 
Friend may say that I should not have held them out, but I was 8 
encouraged by my leaders to hold them out. . . 
And again in the same speech :— 
" If the housing problem is urgent now it will be far more 
urgent when the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restric 
tion) Act has disappeared.” 
And again:— 
. . What we do want is to see that the promise is being 
redeemed which was made in 1918, and, until that promise is re 
deemed, some of us will not rest content.”