24 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
the Minister of Health, are all the poor really need. ai 
Anything beyond is a luxury—a sin against the tax- p 
payer—an " economic loss.” And, besides, the poor s< 
do not understand it and do not want it. U 
As regards the third excuse, the suggestion is some- w 
times made, not only by those who desire to stop any si 
kind of housing by the Government, but also by some a 
of the working classes themselves, that the houses a: 
which are being built are not worth having. This r< 
opinion, when honestly held, is often arrived at after si 
seeing the houses at an early stage of their construction, h 
when, as is well known, the rooms always look smaller o 
than they really are. The belief rarely survives an 
inspection of the finished house, if it has been built ri 
in accordance with the model plans which in 1919 the si 
Ministry published and promised to adhere to. a 
Have you ever been into one of these new “ Govern 
ment Houses ” and talked to its tenants, a working 
man and his family ? They have just moved in from 
a very different sort of home. With their savings j 
they have perhaps bought a little extra furniture, and 
at last after so many years the lady of the house has 
the opportunity, which she so longed for when she V 
married years ago, of making a real home. Have you a 
seen the beauty of it ? The little garden gate, the I s 
pretty walk to the house and the flower and vegetable ri 
plots, which her husband digs when he is home from o 
work. You enter and find a tiny but carefully planned f< 
hall with a commodious living-room, and leading out g 
of it a thoroughly well-equipped scullery and larder a