6o 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
That Local Authorities, which say they do not 
want Houses, know best, and should be left alone 
Let us consider the former statement. It all depends bi 
on what you mean by " suffice.” Private enterprise it 
has to its " credit ” many notable achievements. be 
Houses, 40 or 50 to an acre. Seventy thousand back- 
to-back houses in Leeds. An England flooded out with Gi 
two-bedroom cottages, whose families have to sleep nc 
three or more in a small bedroom. Long rows of se 
mean streets, where the front doors open on to the dc 
pavement and two-year old children play on the bi 
doorstep and risk their lives in the road. Back ext en- ot 
sions which deprive the main body of the house of 0 
air and light; tiny paved yards or a wretched patch so 
of useless ground serving only as a waste-heap. Party- ai 
walls which it is dangerous to lean up against. Dark it 
stairs and small windows, and rooms low, small and 01 
ill-ventilated. No doubt there are a lot of people in T 
England who think this sort of thing has " sufficed ” bi 
for the working classes. But the working classes do cc 
not think so. ai 
It is the peculiar glory of private building enterprise p; 
that it has been responsible for 95 per cent, of these 
“ homes for the people ”—" brick boxes with slate 
lids ” as John Burns once called them. cl 
Let us apply another test. How would it have done ti 
to have left to private enterprise, after the war, the h 
task of meeting the housing needs of the country ? si