22

THE  HOUSING  QUESTION

When  Sir  Alfred  Mond  was  thus  suggesting  that  he
fortunately  did  not  have  to  build  so  many  houses
because  their  possible  tenants  had  got  themselves
killed,  he  forgot  their  wives  and  children,  presumably
because  he  never  thinks  of  them.
He  also  forgot  that  during  the  war  all  emigration
for  Great  Britain  had  been  stopped,  which  immensely
increased  the  congestion  of  population  in  the  country.
(2)  Sir  Alfred  Mond  repeated  on  the  13th  March,
1922,  the  gross  fallacy  referred  to  at  the  beginning  of
this  chapter.  He  said  :—
"...  We  have  supplied  houses  with  public  assistance  to  the
extent  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  million,  and  if  you  take  the  number
of  years  of  the  war,  and  take  the  average  number  of  cottages
that  were  built  pre-war  of  this  kind,  you  will  see  that  the  Government ­
  have  filled  the  hiatus  which  the  war  created.  .  .  ."
Thus  again  he  omitted  all  consideration  of  the  wastage
of  houses  and  increase  of  population  between  1914  and
1922  !

SECOND  AND  THIRD  EXCUSES
(a)  That  the  Working  Classes  do  not  want  such
Good  Houses,
(b)  That  the  Government  Houses  are  not  worth
having.
These  two  excuses,  which  are  maintained  by  differing
schools  of  thought,  might  be  considered  as  cancelling
each  other.  However,  they  are  worth  some  examination. ­