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CHAPTER XXIII 
Housing Conditions. 
As Rangoon acts as a labour pool for the whole province 
there is a large floating population in addition to the resident 
labour force. The number of = Indians permanently employed is 
very small compared with the total numbers. Housing is provided 
by employers for a substantial proportion of the former, generally 
in the form of barracks. Some of these are of a fair standard, 
but much of the accommodation ib capable of considerable improve- 
ment. The barracks are subject to inspection by the Corporation, 
but that authority rarely insists on enforcement of its own regula- 
tions. In many cases the buildings are two-storeyed and arranged back 
to back, whilst sanitation is defective. In spite of these defects, they 
are superior to anything else available for labour in Rangoon, but they 
are very different from the type of housing to which the worker is acous- 
tomed. The Corporation has provided houses for about 209) of its 
employees and proposes to extend its building programme until it has 
accommodated 609, of its staff, whilst the Rangoon Port Commissioners 
have also built quarters for a proportion of their permanent employees. 
Generally speaking, temporary employees and casual labourers find 
shelter in buildings registered as lodging-houses by the Municipality. 
Most of these places are situated in the heart of the city, where land is 
expensive and rents are high, and in 1928 there were 1,659 such houses 
licensed for 75,777 persons. There is a large. population for whom no 
proper housing is available, and these overcrowd the lodging-houses 
beyond the licensed limits. A lodging-house usually consists of a single 
room without windows or ventilation openings and with no sanitary 
arrangements. The room is leased on payment of a lump sum to a gang 
maistry, who crowds in as many labourers as he can. Each tenant pays 
from Rs. 2 to Rs. 4 rent per month. The committee which reported on 
the Public Health of Rangoon in 1926 describes a room in which were 
counted 50 persons, although the number allowed by municipal regula- 
bion was only nine. “ Every inch of floor Space is occupied by a sleep- 
ing human being and others are to be found on shelves and bunks along 
the walls”. In a number of houses the occupants include some women, 
and so-called” married quarters consist of a small portion of the room 
screened off with gunny bags. Interior partitions of different kinds have 
the effect of reducing light and ventilation still further. The same room 
may also be occupied by two sets of tenants, one at night and 
the other, whose work takes them out at night, during the day. The 
standard of accommodation in the Corporation bye-laws is by no means 
exacting, being 36 square feet per person. This is reduced to 24 square 
feet where ventilation is ample and an open space exists round the build- 
ing. Under these regulations the average room, about 124’ Xx 50’ in 
size, provides for fourteen persons, but if it were occupied half the time 
by one gang and half by another, there would be no grounds for prosecu- 
tion, although 28 persons were in occupation. In the hot weather condi- 
tions may not be so detrimental to health as these figures would seem to 
imply, because most, of the tenants use the room merely as a place for