the  housing  question

33

the  pivotal  Housing  debate  on  List  July,  1921,  in  the
Commons  :—
“  The  fact  remains  that  we  have  now  a  permanent  burden  for
60  years  of  ten  millions  a  year  on  our  taxes  in  order  to  provide
these  houses.  ...  I  say  we  have  incurred  a  commitment  of
£600,000.000  to  provide  these  houses.  .  .  ."
Even  so  good  a  Coalitionist  as  Mr.  Holmes—a
Housing  expert—could  not  swallow  this.  He  interrupted ­
  Sir  Alfred  Mond  thus  :—
Mr.  Holmes  :  "  May  I  ask  the  Right  Hon.  Gentleman  to  clear
up  one  point  ?  He  said  that  it  meant  a  sum  of  £600,000,000.
I  think  his  announcement  was  that  1 76,000  houses  had  been  built
at  an  average  cost  of  £1,000  each.  That  comes  to  £176,000,000.
How  does  the  Right  Hon.  Gentleman  arrive  at  a  total  of
£600,000,000  ?  "
Sir  A.  Mond  :  “  There  is  a  loss  of  £10,000,000  a  year  for  60
years.  It  will  not  be  quite  £600,000,000.  As  the  Hon.  Member
knows,  some  of  these  loans  are  of  shorter  date  than  others.  I  am
not  going  into  details,  but  roughly  V  may  be  estimated  that
you  would  spend  £10,000,000  a  year  for  60  years.  That  is  not
Capital.”
Let  us  apply  Sir  Alfred  Mond’s  curious  reasoning
to  the  cost  of  the  war.  About  six  thousand  millions
it  cost  and  its  annual  interest  is  some  three  hundred
millions  a  year.  Suppose  the  debt  is  paid  off  in  a
hundred  years— we  shall  be  very  fortunate  if  it
jg  he  would  no  doubt  tell  us  that  the  cost  of  the
war  worked  out  to  thirty  thousand  million  pounds.
Is  that  the  new  arithmetic  for  which  we  are  indebted
to  a  Government  of  business  men  ?
“  A  permanent  burden  for  60  years  of  ten  millions
a  vear.”  When  he  tried  to  make  the  House  of  Comc