26 
THE HOUSING QUESTION 
gave the farmer a double hold over his man. Not 
only could he, if the latter proved idle or unruly, turn 
him out of his job, but he could also deprive him of his 
home as well. With two-fold chains the labourers 
were held. 
After taking counsel, therefore. Dr. Addison in his 
Manual of State-Aided Houses, issued early in 1919, 
and in memoranda to his Staff and to Local Authorities, 
directed that the sites for the new subsidised houses 
in the rural areas were to be chosen in villages or 
assembled in new communities, instead of being 
placed on the farms. Not only for the reasons of 
liberty, to which we have alluded, but for this reason 
also, that where the house is remote from a village, 
although the breadwinner is near his work, the house 
wife becomes a lonely woman and has far to go for 
shopping and neighbours. The children, too, have 
long walks to and from school, and in bad weather 
have to be kept at home ; whereas, if the house is built 
near to others, the mother and children gain very greatly 
and the bread-winner, if he has a bicycle, need lose 
comparatively little time to get to work. And, in any 
case, he is only one, and the strongest, and he, too, 
gains through security of tenure and access to society. 
For, if the subsidised cottage, owned by the local 
Council, were built on the farm, then, although the 
man’s dismissal from his work would not automatically 
eject him from his home, yet practically it would have 
that result, since a house on a farm, where he could 
not work, would be little use to him.