HOUSE RENT AT HOME.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1921, 2 December 1913, Page 15

HOUSE RENT AT HOME.

« RATES THAT EVER RISE. LANDLORDS DEVELOPING APARTMENTS. You may tell an Englishman (days tiio Sydney "Sun's" London correspondent) that wages arc high. in Australia ; ho i vriil believe you. You may tell him lliat food is very cheap; your j-oputa-tinu i'or truthfulness still goes unchallenged. But don't, whatever you do, attempt to convince him that house rents in Australia are cheaper than they are in England. The average Englishman cherishes two illusions at least— the product of many, many years—concerning Australia. They are: — 1. That clothing is abnormally dear —an illusion fostered by tho many shops which specialise in "colonial outlits" —at prices oO per cent, dearer than those of any oversea Dominion. 2. That, apart from living -in a bark hut, it is impossible to get a house in Australia under £100 a year. As "Australian v. Knglish House Rents" is tho topic of this article, perhaps I had hotter confine myself strictly to it. There are quite a number of illusions an Australian would like to shatter about England, and the one that it' is possiblo to get a decent house anywhere near Loudon at a fair rent is one of them. As a matter of fact, short of living in lifth-rato suburbs like C'amberwell, Lambeth, Hackney, Islington, or Battersea, it .is absolutely impossible to get a habitable residence v/ithiu live miics of London under 30s. a week. Not that you will get a great deal i'or this. It will possibly be a house with five rooms, a kitchen, bathroom (if you arc lucky), and, as tho agents say, every possible convenience. You will not got much in the way of a garden, possibly not enough to swing the prover- j bial eat in without fear of dashing its brains' out against the wail. Iu Ealing, Hampstead, Kensington, Maida Vale, Golder's Green, and even at Ciapham and Brixton, it is next to impossible to live in a fair-sized house under £2 a week. Indeed, in the better class suburbs suclt a,s Ealing, Hampstead, Kensington, a good, but not large, house will cost up to £200 a year. Australians would probably expect a mansion for this, but they would be woefully disappointed. The house might contain twelvo or fourteen rooms, 'and would invariably possess that particular abomination so common to English dwellings, a basement. You would, in fact, be renting one of the old town residences used 50 years ago by the City , merchants, but\ which have entirely i gono out of fashion with the advent ' of the taxi-nb and the motor-bus. ' It opens oil to tho street, has r>o back entrance, and is generally damp. Londoners Driven Out. Within the past few years the impracticability of getting a house at a fair rent is driving tho London householder farther and farther afield. Mushroom suburbs aro springing up, particularly to the north of London, where jerry-built houses arc being run up by the thousand. They aro of tho usuai brick and plaster in mock Elizabethan and Jacobean styles. Alio agent tells you the rent is fourteen shillings a week—and pay your own rates. An Australian would naturally think, "Alii this is all right;.my rent will bo only sixteen shillings a week altogether." He will get tho shock, of his lit'", for of all tho fearsome and wonderful things in England municipal rates take a lot oF heating. Even in the HiMv suburbs I spoke of the rates are appalling, a few oi' which. I quote :— s. d. Edmonton 10 0 in tho & Kniield !1 4 in the £ Hornso.v 7 G' in the & Norwood 7 0 in tno .0 Isloworth 8 10 in tno £ Southgato 7 10 in tnc £ Contrary to the Australian custom, tho usual practice in England is for the .tenant to pay the, rates. In (lie better-class suburbs, of course, they aro not as high, but rents aro not_ any lower in consequence. The privilege of living in tho samo district as the so-called "elite" is one you have to pay dearly for. You coukl live, in an eight-roomed house in for a pound a week. It would cost moro than double that in Hampstead or Ken- •*' "Rates! Rates! Rates!" Tlie.y aro the curse of the English householder's life, and that old saying, ''The poor five always with us,".is-tho cause of it all. Australia, with practically no destitution, does not know the meaning of a poor rate, but in-England it is an enormous tax on tho householder. Poplar, one of the poorest districts in England, has a municipal rato of lis. 3d. in the £, no loss than 4s. of which is appropriated by tho poor law guardians. Other poverty-stricken districts, sueli as Uorniondsey, Deptford, bhorodilch, Stepnev, and Woolwich, havo rates from Bs. to 10s. in the £to pay. Chelsea, Fulhain, Hampstead, Kensington, and Westminster have rates from ts. to Ss., their comparative immunity from paupers giving thorn a little relief. Cash Without comfort. ' All this may not sound very apropos to the subject of house rents, but it is tho cause of their being so high in England. It is a perfectly safe thing to say that house rent, in Australia, bearin"' iu mind tho class of aceommoita tion and the building of the homo, " fully 33 per cent- cheaper than m England, and probably 50 per cent, cheapct than around London. Ground, ol course, is enormously dear, and the bip landlords, such as the Dukes of Norfolk, West-minster, and Ileanlort, Lord Howard do Walden, and the Rotiischilds, arc apparently aiming to make London ono vast i;i;iss of hotels, boiu'ding and apartment houses and Hats, h is°bv no means exaggerating to slate that' fullv a third -of London's hug( population either lives iu a hotel, t Hat, if sufficiently wealthy, in the so called model dwellings or apartments All around Westminster, Pimlicn, Pad diugton, Maida Vale, lirixton, Camber well, Lambeth, and a dozen othar sub urbs, is gradually becoming nothing bu' apartment homes. A goodly proportion of the people who keep those house: are Englishwomen married to Swiss am German waiters, with whom London i: overrun. Tho wife does the work ant tlio foreigner takes the money. More and more every year are Eng lisli people being forced to lake apart melds; without the means to pay L'as. oi 30s. a week to rent a house at all haiidj to their work, or pay the very dear railway fares to tho outlying suburbs, thoy an- left with the alternative of eithei taking a llat or renting three or l'oul rooms in a largo house, Home-lile, a: Australians know it, is unknown in Lou dun. You can have a garden with yoin house ii' you can afford to rent :i place at- £100 a year; if not, you must gi without. Yo do liot see cottages nrount London. Three and four-story house! are the rule, tho builders' tendency, liki the municipal rates, being always to g( heavenwards. Tho pleasant littio ret brick, ver,imbibed cottage at los. to 20s a week Australians know and love s< well is an unknown luxury in London . within feu miles, at any rate. Eng lish houses, not being afflicted will much sunshine, do not sport, verandah: or balconies. They are mostly built oi a plain up-and-down scale, .some of tin designs in chimney-pots being their mosi distinctive feature. In a good many ways the system o house-letting in Loudon is open to ol) jcetion. You have to take a place !oi not less than six months, provide unim peachable references, and pay three months' rent in advance, whilst'- an, l woman wanting to take a house in hei own name is almost required to product her marriage lines. Australia iiosscsse: a good many advantages over England the cost of a. house and living g'-nenili; •so oiilv two of them.