RURAL HOUSING SCANDAL

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 155, 26 March 1919, Page 9

RURAL HOUSING SCANDAL

COMFORTLESS, CRAMPED, AND UNHEALTHY'HOMES ..- THE " TIED "COTTAGE While the housing',problem in British towns' is. acutely severe, it is even more serious in many of our nival districts (states an article in tho "Daily News"). i Mr. B. B, Walker, general secretary df the National Agricultural Labourers and Rural Workers' Union, interviewed' by n "Daily News" representative,-said,that some of the cottages in' which agricultural workers are forced to live ought to 'bo. regarded as quite uninhabitable, ro' 'dilapidated and unwholesome is their condition.' "And not only this/' ho added, '"but there is definitely a very Berious shortage of ■ houses'.' The local authorities, consisting generally of ir majority ot farmers and landowners, have failed lamentably in their duty of providing adequate accommodation, and private enterprise' also has neglected to do it. Now we have come to the considered conclusion, thai/ no half measures will suffice, and the '•Government iriust, without- further delay, bring the strongest pressure .to bear upon-the local authorities to-.put into.forco an adequate housing 6,cheine,..in which the needs of the agricultural worker shall be properly provid. Ed f0r."..,' .... . . '.•

[Picturesquo but Unhealthy,

". It'.newls'no great knowledge of rural Englami to re-real to any citizen with .eyes in his head how poor nnd inade-quate-is'the housing in the villages. As Mr. Walker pointeu ouif, the picturesque ivy-covered cottage of the labourer, which. arti.jts andlandowners like to seo in the country, may be the most unwholesome spot in the (neighbourhood for its real purpose—the housing of a hard-working man ( &iid his - 'wife and children. "To taken, few places quite at random,"'he, said, "you coin find 6onio appalling object'lessons; in .bad housing in picturesquo villages in Essex, in Herts, (especially' North and East-Herts), in Dorset,--ill Oxfordshire, in North. Northamptonshire, and in Wales. You can, in fact, find them'everywhere. ..'... ~ "It'is well-nigh impossible for parents and families' to livo decent, comfortable lives, such.a? they want to live, in .a .foynSroqiheil cottage with two rooms upstairs atid two rooms" downstairs, for a husband and wife and seven children. Yet that is the typical country labourer's cottage such as I know-by the' hundred, and' many a family of six'or seven children has-been compelled to live as beat "it can in such cramped surroundings.'' '..".■ •

"I know of one cottage 'in .the Eastern Counties; for. instance, where there are no stairs—oily a ladder, with a rope to guide you, leading to the upper rooms. And- one night I stayed in a cottage in the Eastern Counties lyhero' the downstairs rooms • consisted" of one living room and a tiny pantry or scullery," and the upstairs rooms consisted of .two cramped bedrooms. To get to the second bedroom you had to pass right through the first bedroom, and so low was the ceiling that you had to stoop to-enter the ■ door—it'was impossible for anyone but a smalt child to enter without crouching. Tho sanitary arraiigoments at some Of the cottages are appal-ling-in fact, one wonders how thoy could have been tolerated even fifty or a hundred years ago," '

Not Worth Patching,

Many'of the houses are now so dilapidated 4hat they are not worth the cost of patchingi.up, and as the trouble will surely become more acute lis men -return- from the .'Army., (o the land, Mr. Walker-; is. certain that nothing short-of big comprehensive scheih.es will nieot-the case,.., "There are large numbers of villages, that urgently need 20 or. 30 new labourers' cottages," he said, "and others need more "if .'the barest .needs "of the population are'to .be provided. At present in large numbers of villages young pebpje' cannot get married" because there is" no house." available for them within 7 or 8 miles of'the husband's work,'-"'

• Another reform- which' the organised lataure'r'deiuands is the abolition; of the "tied'<"cdtta'ge"-^-tho v cottage" farmer's land -"iii-'*which the' worker, liyes rent 'free/'th'e'.ilse of the cottage■ being treated as piirt'tff'his wages. "If a man living'in a 'tied cottage' leaves the service of•- a particular farmer," said Mr. ; Walker,- "he also has 'to vacate that ihouse, and' that 'generally, means, that •he has: to leave the parish, beoause usually there is not: other habitable house vacant- in-the village. That is one <■• the housing reforms we must insist upon when the .whole matter is considered." ..