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THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

May  once  again  deceiving  Parliament  ?  An  indication
of  the  true  reply  to  this  question  can  be  gained  by
considering  what  Sir  Alfred  Mond  has  recently  (on
13th  March,  1922)  told  the  House  of  Commons.  He
said:—
"  No  Local  Authority  is  stopped  to-day  building  houses  from
financial  considerations  under  the  guaranteed  subsidy  scheme."
An  unblushing  inexactitude,  considering  that  for
months  he  has  been  refusing  approval  to  almost  all
Local  Authorities  to  build  further  houses.  He  went
on  to  say  a  little  later  :—"  The  demand  to  get  married
does  not  exist  to-day  because  among  other  reasons
many  people  have  gone  on  living  with  their  friends.”
Lord  Robert  Cecil  interrupted  :—
"  They  have  not  got  married  because  they  cannot
get  houses.”  Sir  Alfred  Mond  replied  :—
"  A  large  number  have  not  got  married  because  they
cannot  afford  it.”
The  public  and  pathetic  outcry  against  the  Minister’s
attempt  to  put  forward  the  idea  that  the  need  for  houses
has  lately  lessened  is  too  recent  to  need  referring  to.
It  may  be  well,  however,  to  quote  the  following  remarks
by  Dr.  Buchan,  Medical  Officer  of  Health  for  Bradford,
on  April  1st,  1922  :—
“  Dr.  Buchan  said  Bradford  is  not  decadent.  Its  population
is  virile  and  increasing,  and  the  last  census  return  was  not  correct.
Yet  there  were  fewer  inhabitable  houses  in  the  city  now  than
fifteen  years  ago.  Men  had  come  back  from  the  war  to  young
wives  and  could  not  get  houses,  and  came  to  him  and  asked
permission  to  live  in  some  den  which  they  had  found.  The