The branch of the land question to which the Government called the
greatest attention in their election promises was Housing. On this
subject the Government have placed many pages of legislation on the
Statute Book. One can only wish that the houses occupied as much space.
They began by informing us, probably accurately, that up to the time of
the Armistice there was an accumulated shortage of 500,000 houses; in
pre-war days new working-class houses were required, and to a certain
extent provided, although the shortage had then already begun, to an
average number of 90,000 a year. According to the official figures in
July last, 123,000 houses had been completed by Local Authorities and
Public Utility Societies; 37,000 by private builders with Government
subsidies; 36,000 were under construction, and as the Government have
now limited the total scheme (thereby causing the resignation of Dr.
Addison, its sponsor) there remain 17,000 to be built. This is the
record of four years, so clearly the Government have not even succeeded
in keeping pace with the normal annual demand, and the shortage has not
been attacked, but actually accentuated.
The cause of the failure was mainly financial. Without attacking the
roots of the evil in our land and rating system, and without attempting
to control the output and supply of materials and building in the way in
which munitions were controlled during the war, the Government brought
forward gigantic schemes to be financed from the supposedly bottomless
purse of the tax-payer. At the same time the demand for building
materials and labour in every direction was at its maximum, and
unfortunately both employers and employed in the building and allied
industries took the fullest advantage of the position to force up prices
without regard to the unfortunate people who wanted houses. The Trade
Unions concerned seem to have overlooked the fact that if wages were
raised and output reduced houses would become so dear that their
fellow-workmen who needed them could not attempt to pay the rents
required, and the tax-payer would revolt against the burdens imposed
upon him; thus the golden era for their own trade was bound to come to a
rapid end, and, so far from employment being increased and prolonged,
unemployment on a large scale was bound to result. With the Anti-Waste
panic and the Geddes Axe, social reform was cut first, and, in their
hurry to stop the provision of homes for heroes, the Government is
indulging in such false economies as leaving derelict land acquired and
laid out at enormous cost, even covering over excavations already made,
and paying out to members of the building trade large sums in
unemployment benefit, while the demand for the houses on which they
might be employed is left wholly unsatisfied.