THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

59

are  beginning  to  see  through  it.
afford  to  malign  its  own  servants.

No  country  can

NOTES  ON  THE  FOREGOING.
The  following  quotation  from  the  Minister  of  Health’s
speech  in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  13th  March,  1922,
displays  a  power  of  exaggeration  and  prejudice  difficult
to  compete  with  :—
"...  A  large  amount  of  this  saving  [i.e.,  a  reduction  of  the
Ministry’s  annual  estimates]  is  partly  war  bonus  and  partly  the
abolition  or  reduction  of  the  housing  staff,  and,  when  I  said  earlier
in  the  Debate  that  I  wondered  whether  anybody  was  anxious
that  we  should  continue  with  the  scheme  we  had  been  working
in  the  past,  I  was  thinking  of  the  enormous  overhead  charges
involved  from  the  nature  of  the  scheme,  and  I  thought  it  could
be  avoided  by  a  scheme  of  a  different  character.  I  am  sure  nobody,
either  local  authorities  or  anybody  else,  desires  to  have  these
unnecessary  overhead  charges  and  duplication  of  salaries  if  they
can  be  avoided.  .  .
He  was,  of  course,  playing  to  the  gallery.  No  one
knows  better  than  the  Minister  of  Health  how  small,
how  necessary,  and  how  fully  economical  was  the
money  expended  on  his  housing  staff.
Evidently  one  cannot  expect  from  Sir  Alfred  Mond
any  recognition  of  the  work  done  by  his  officials,
whether  permanent  or  temporary.
THIRTEENTH  EXCUSE
That  Private  Enterprise  sufficed  in  the  Past  and
should  suffice  To-day