THE HOUSING QUESTION 
53 
TENTH EXCUSE 
That a Housing Bureaucracy is Ignorant, Idle 
and Expensive, 
ELEVENTH EXCUSE 
That Control by Local Authorities is necessarily 
Slow and Inefficient, 
TWELFTH EXCUSE 
That the Architects are mainly responsible for 
the Failure of the Government Housing Scheme. 
These three errors may be analysed together. They 
are the usual case put forward by the Federation of 
Building Trade Employers, Chambers of Commerce, 
the National Union of Manufacturers, the Federation 
of British Industries, the Middle Classes’ Union, the 
Daily Mail, “ Taxpayer,” “ Mother of Seven,” the 
Carlton Club, the Anti-Socialist Union, and Mr. Horatio 
Bottomley. The twelfth excuse is the private property 
and invention of Sir Charles Ruthen, Director General 
of Housing, political ally of Sir Alfred Mond, and— 
until he brought this charge against his own profession, 
but not afterwards—President of the Society of 
Architects. 
“ Business men,” all of them claim to be—except 
perhaps " Mother of Seven,” and hers is generally 
the temporarily assumed title of a local tradesman 
who objects to paying his income tax.