Page:EB1911 - Volume 13.djvu/848

Rh make the house in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation.”

Among the other and less direct means to which attention is being turned is the policy of getting people away from the towns. The effect of improved travelling facilities in reducing urban overcrowding has been noted above. That object was not specifically contemplated in the building and electrification of tramways, and in the development of other means of cheap local travel, but the beneficial effect has caused them to be recognized as an important factor in relation to housing and to be more systematically applied in that connexion. A newer departure, however, is to encourage migration not to the outskirts of towns but altogether into the country by facilitating the acquisition of small holdings of land. This has been done by private landowners in an experimental way for some years, and in 1907 the policy was embodied in the Small Holdings Act, which gives county and borough councils power to purchase or hire land compulsorily and let it in holdings of not more than 50 acres or £50 annual value. Failing action on their part the Board of Agriculture may frame schemes. Power is also conferred on the Board and on County Councils to establish co-operative agricultural societies and credit banks. These measures have been adopted from foreign countries, and particularly from Denmark and Germany. A very large number of applications for holdings have been made under this act, but it is too early to state the effects. They will depend on the success of tenants in earning a livelihood by agricultural produce.

Another new and quite different departure is the attempt to establish a novel kind of town, called a “Garden City,” which shall combine the advantages of the town and the country. The principal points are the choice of a site, which must be sufficiently convenient to enable industries to be carried on, yet with rural surroundings, the laying out of the ground in such a way as to ensure plenty of open space and variety, the insistence on building of a certain standard and the limitation of size. One has been established at Letchworth in Hertfordshire, 34 m. from London, and so far seems to be prospering. It consists of an area of 3800 acres, bought from the previous owners by a company registered in 1903 and entitled First Garden City Ltd., with a capital of £300,000 in £5 shares. The interest is limited to a dividend of 5%, all further profits to be devoted to the benefit of the town. The estate is divided into a central urban area of 1200 and a surrounding agricultural belt of 2600 acres. The town is planned for an eventual population of 30,000 and at present (1909) has about 5000. Some London printing works and other small industrial establishments have been planted there, and a number of model cottages have been built. In this connexion another recent novelty has appeared in the shape of an exhibition of cottages. The idea, originated by Mr St Loe Strachey, was to encourage the art of designing and building cheap but good and convenient cottages, especially for the country. Two exhibitions have been held at Letchworth in 1905 and 1907, and others at Sheffield (1907) and Newcastle (1908). The two latter were held on municipal land, and it is proposed by the National Housing Reform Council to hold one every year.

The “Garden City” has led to the “Garden Suburb,” an adaptation of the same idea to suburban areas. One was opened near Hampstead Heath in 1907: it consists of 240 acres, of which 72 have been reserved for working-class cottages with gardens. These developments, with which may be associated the model industrial villages, mentioned above, at Bournville, Port Sunlight and Earswick, represent an aspiration towards a higher standard of housing for families belonging to the upper ranks of the working classes; and the same movement is demonstrated in a still more interesting fashion by a particular form of co-operative activity known as Co-partnership Housing. The first complete example of this method of organization was the Ealing Tenants Limited, a society registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Act in 1901, though the Tenant Co-operators Limited, formed in 1888, was a precursor on very nearly the same lines. The essential principle is self-help applied by combination to the provision of superior homes, and the chief material feature is the building of houses which are not only of good design and workmanship, but disposed on a systematic plan so as to utilize the ground to the best advantage. Land is bought and houses are built with combined capital to which each tenant contributes a substantial share; the houses are let at rents which will return 5% on share capital and 4% on loan capital after defraying all expenses, and the surplus profits are divided among the tenant members in proportion to the rents paid by them. Each tenant’s share of profits is credited to him in shares until his share capital equals the value of the house he occupies, after which it is paid in cash. There is thus common ownership of the whole group, which forms a little community. This system has caught on in a remarkable way and has spread with great rapidity. In 1905 a central organizing body was formed called the Co-partnership Housing Council, for the purpose of promoting the formation of societies and assisting them with advice; it is supported by voluntary contributions. In 1909 twelve societies, including the original Tenant Co-operators, had been formed with a total investment of £536,300. They are situated at Ealing, Letchworth, Sevenoaks, Leicester, Manchester, Hampstead (two), Harborne near Birmingham, Fallings Park, Stoke-on-Trent, Wayford and Derwentwater. The rapidity with which the movement has developed and spread since the establishment of the Co-partnership Housing Council indicates great vitality, and since it is based on thoroughly sound lines it has probably a large future. It is the most interesting and in many respects the best of all recent developments. The Report of the Select Committee on Rural Housing mentioned above suggested that a Co-partnership Housing Society should be formed in every county in England.

All the enterprises just described have one feature in common, namely, the laying out of sites on a plan which takes cognizance of the future, secures a due proportion of open space, variety in the arrangement of streets and the most advantageous disposition of the houses and other buildings. They go beyond sanitary requirements and take account of higher needs. They have lent force to the advocacy of municipal “town-planning,” as practised by several towns in Germany; and provision was made for this procedure in the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909. The act contains clauses giving local authorities power to prepare plans with reference to any land which appears likely to be used for building purposes within or near their own boundaries; and also to purchase land comprised in a town-planning scheme and either build on it themselves or let plots for building in accordance with the plan. The chief object is to safeguard the future, prevent the repetition of past defects and encourage a higher standard of housing.

These new developments represent an upward movement at the higher end of the scale. They cater for the superior ranks of working classes, those who attach some importance to the aesthetic and moral influence of pleasant and wholesome surroundings, and are willing to sacrifice immediate gratifications to a higher end. They embody an aspiration, set an example and exercise an educative influence. But they have nothing to do with the housing of the really poor, which is the great difficulty; and their very attractiveness seems in some danger of drawing attention from it. Garden cities and suburbs will never house the poor or even the bulk of our working class population, and it would be a pity if the somewhat sentimental popularity of romantic schemes led to a distaste for the plodding effort which alone can effect a real cure of deep-seated social evils of long standing. All the new schemes and legislative proposals leave untouched the greatest difficulty of all, which lies not in the dwelling but in the tenant. It is comparatively easy to afford better opportunities to those who are willing to take advantage of them, but how to raise those who are not? The lesson taught by Miss Octavia Hill’s classical experiment is, if not forgotten, certainly neglected in the presence of more showy efforts. Or perhaps it would be more true to say that half of it is neglected. Miss Hill was one of the pioneers in the comparatively modest