Page:Dwellings of working-people in London.djvu/28

 may hope will be set free by the powers proposed to be given to the Corporation of London and the Metropolitan Board of Works.

The Trustees of Mr. Peabody have built several blocks of buildings of the most interesting and useful character, and which are largely in demand by the more provident of the working classes.

The company of which my hon. friend, the member for Maidstone (Sir Sydney Waterlow), is the chairman, has provided accommodation for no less than 6,340 persons in its buildings. (Hear, hear.)

I must also refer to the Baroness Burdett Coutts, whose name should be mentioned with special honour in connection with her Columbia Square Buildings for working men and their families. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Gibbs, in Rochester Buildings, near this House, has erected model dwellings for working men which are well worthy of imitation. The Corporation of the City of London have done something in this direction, and the benevolent persons represented by Miss Octavia Hill have provided accommodation for 1,500 persons in their dwellings. The right hon. gentleman, the Recorder of London (Mr. Russell Gurney), should also be named among those who have been foremost in this good work. (Hear, hear.)

I must now mention one or two facts relative to the experience of those who have attempted to provide better accommodation for working men. One fact bears very much upon the necessity for compulsory powers, and it is that the Associations I have referred to have to pay such varying sums, such large sums in most cases, and such extortionate sums in other instances for the sites on which to erect their dwellings. I will mention some figures to show the varying amount of ground-rent which the companies find it necessary to levy per family per week in order to recoup themselves for the ground-rent under which they sit as owners of these buildings. In one of these buildings it is necessary to charge a ground-rent of 1s. 1d. per family per week; in another. 1s. 6d. In one case this payment is as low as a penny farthing; in another it is threepence three farthings.

The House will, I hope, realise that heavy ground-rents are the result of leaving these Associations to obtain their sites at fancy prices; and that the consequence is that a working man with a family cannot in some blocks obtain the accommodation which these Associations provide for him without beginning by paying 1s. or 1s. 6d. a week for ground rent, to