THE HOUSING QUESTION 
57 
did not really begin till the autumn of 1919. By the 
Spring of 1922, 100,000 houses are nearly completed. 
This rate compares well with most pre-war years, 
taking into account the reduced numbers and output 
of operatives and the abnormal demand for private 
building and repairs after the war. 
The twelfth excuse is, as has been remarked, the 
private property of Sir Charles Ruthen, whom Sir 
Alfred Mond, his ally in South Wales, appointed 
Director General of Housing. At an address which he 
gave in January, 1922, to the Society of Architects, 
of which he was then (but by desire of the Society no 
longer is) President, he said, firstly, that the prime 
responsibility for the failure of the Government Scheme 
rested on the shoulders of architects, and, secondly, 
that architects had profiteered in their schemes. 
There was a prompt rebuttal of these remarkable 
charges. The following letter in The Builder, February 
10th, 1922, from a late Housing Commissioner, may 
be quoted :— 
Architects and Housing. 
" Sir,—With reference to the charges brought by Sir Charles 
Ruthen, Director General of Housing, against the architectural 
profession, I ought to narrate what was my experience while 
Housing Commissioner from March, 1919, to September, 1921 :— 
“ (a) The plans, &c., submitted by architects for the local 
authorities in the Region were very rarely in excess of the standard 
set in the ' Manual for State-Aided Houses ’ issued by the Ministry 
of Health in 1919, and in the model form of specification similarly 
issued.