22 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
When Sir Alfred Mond was thus suggesting that he 
fortunately did not have to build so many houses 
because their possible tenants had got themselves 
killed, he forgot their wives and children, presumably 
because he never thinks of them. 
He also forgot that during the war all emigration 
for Great Britain had been stopped, which immensely 
increased the congestion of population in the country. 
(2) Sir Alfred Mond repeated on the 13th March, 
1922, the gross fallacy referred to at the beginning of 
this chapter. He said :— 
"... We have supplied houses with public assistance to the 
extent of about a quarter of a million, and if you take the number 
of years of the war, and take the average number of cottages 
that were built pre-war of this kind, you will see that the Govern 
ment have filled the hiatus which the war created. . . ." 
Thus again he omitted all consideration of the wastage 
of houses and increase of population between 1914 and 
1922 ! 
SECOND AND THIRD EXCUSES 
(a) That the Working Classes do not want such 
Good Houses, 
(b) That the Government Houses are not worth 
having. 
These two excuses, which are maintained by differing 
schools of thought, might be considered as cancelling 
each other. However, they are worth some examina 
tion.