Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/66

 obvious that they cannot establish everywhere the desired housing minimum. The root difficulty remains. When all that can be done has been done, there must still be many persons who, if abandoned to their own unaided efforts, cannot afford to purchase that quantity and quality of housing accommodation which the general judgment of the country declares to be a necessary minimum; they are unable, in fact, to offer enough rent to induce builders to provide them with respectable dwellings. In some cases, no doubt, this inability may not be absolute, but may be due to the fact that they attach an unduly low importance to housing accommodation as contrasted with other objects of expenditure; and, when this is the source of the evil, it may be feasible, by rigid inspection and so forth, to compel them to spend more on housing, just as it may be feasible to compel them to spend more on insurance, without forcing down their consumption of other things below the accepted minimum standards. In very many cases, however, inability