THE HOUSING QUESTION 
25 
and bath. On the other side of the house is a small 
parlour where guests can be entertained, where the 
son of the house can study, or where the maiden of 
twenty summers can talk things over with that someone 
who is so much to her. Go upstairs by the well-lighted 
stair, and enter the three bedrooms, and, as you look 
at the order and beauty with which the mother has 
arranged her nest, think for a moment of those dark 
rooms you have known in a vile and insanitary slum, 
from which perhaps these people have moved—as from 
hell to heaven. And ask the mother what she thinks 
of it all. 
And then ask yourself, firstly, whether those are 
right who say that the working classes do not want 
such good houses ; and, secondly, whether the houses 
are not worth having. 
FOURTH EXCUSE 
That the Rural Labourer is Content with things 
as they are 
When Dr. Addison became Minister of Health and was 
armed by Parliament with powers to re-house the 
Nation, he was rightly advised that the bane of the 
rural labourer was the “ tied " cottage, the cottage 
owned by the landlord and handed over to the farmer 
for the use of his labourers. These cottages were 
generally situated on, or close to, the farms, a consider 
able distance from the nearest village. This system