The Housing Problem: The Socialist View. (1933)

From the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem of housing has been brought into prominence again by the Government's decision to discontinue subsidies except for the purpose of slum clearance. What is the so-called housing problem? And what have Socialists to say about it ?

The first thing to be noticed is that, properly speaking, it is not a housing problem at all. There is not a universal shortage of housing, but only a shortage among part of the population. Those who have enough money experience no difficulty in renting, buying or building new and spacious accommodation. It is only the workers who need help, and that is simply because they are poor. The housing problem is only another aspect of, or another name for, the general problem of working class poverty.

Does capitalism produce houses (or any other articles) for the use of the population? By no means. It produces houses only when it is profitable to the capitalist to do so, and to the extent that those who need accommodation can afford to pay for it. Mr. Harry Barnes, formerly Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and Liberal M.P. for Newcastle East, in his book, “Housing" (Pub. by Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1923), points out that the rate at which new houses were being built during the 110 years from 1801 to 1911, was not constant, or increasing with the increase in population, but rose and fell in accordance with the amount of profit to be obtained in house building as compared with the rate of profit to be obtained by investing money in other directions. (See pages 17 and 43, and all chapter V.) He says: —

In times of great trading, commercial and industrial activity, building will slacken owing to the engrossing and profitable character of other occupations. (P. 43.)

Thus, instead of building houses to meet the growing needs of a growing population, 19th century capitalism showed “a period of considerable activity in house-building from 1801 to 1841, then half a century in which the pace of building fell away, from 1841 to 1891. Last of all, a period from 1891 to 1911, during which the greatest effort in absolute numbers by private enterprise to supply this fundamental human need was made." (P. 17.)

At no time, however, could it be said that all the working class were decently and adequately provided for. Mr. Barnes states that, in 1801, the estimated number of “surplus families" (i.e., “the family for which no structurally separate dwelling exists, which can only find its shelter by inhabiting the home of another family, a result producing, in innumerable cases, the deadly social evil of overcrowding") was 320,000. By 1911 it had risen to nearly 900,000. (See p. 18.)

He wrote (p. 18):—

Year by year during the century it is seen that there has been a steady falling short of the number of houses required to be provided.

And again (p. 37): —

The housing shortage of to-day is not something that comes like a bolt from the blue . . . . but is rather the slow accumulation of a century, suddenly and terribly increased by the conditions arising out of the war.

As early as 1835, when elected local councils were set up, these new municipal authorities "began to obtain private acts empowering them to demolish insanitary dwellings and to impose stringent regulations upon the builders." (See Houses for All, by E. D. Simon, now Sir E. D. Simon, Pub. Daily News, Ltd. 1923. P.3.) But it was the Shaftesbury Act of 1851 which brought local authorities into house building in an endeavour to make good the declining supply of working class houses. It will be noticed that 1851 was ten years after the year in which house building began to decline. The number of houses built in 1851 was only about three-fifths of the number built in 1841. (Barnes, P. 37.) The position was, of course, that the workers could not afford to pay a rent which would make the building of new houses as profitable to the capitalist as it was to invest his money in industrial and commercial buildings, or in mining, iron and steel, railways, etc., at home or abroad. Between 1851 and 1914 many other Acts were passed with the object of promoting the building of working class houses, and in 1884 the whole subject was inquired into by a Royal Commission.

The period 1891 to 1911 was a period of great activity in house building. The reason was the trade depression: Capitalists found their investments in industry yielding only small profits, and the consequent glut of money forced down the yield on Government stocks, so they turned their attention to houses until such time as trade revived again.

Yet, in spite of this burst of building, and in spite of numerous Housing Acts and the activities of local authorities, we have Mr. Barnes' admission referred to above, that in 1911 the number of families without a home of their own (rented or owned) was nearly three times as great as in 1801.

The Effects of the War.

Then came the War, during which every other activity had to give way to the needs of the fighting forces. House Building practically ceased for five years or more, and in 1919 the position was far worse than in 1911. Mr. J. G. Martin, Secretary of the National Housing and Town Planning Council, in a letter to the Morning Post (January 14th, 1927) quoted an official estimate that there was a deficiency of 800,000 houses, that being the number required to restore the pre-war position. It was also estimated that at least 100,000 new houses are needed each year to replace wastage due to the demolition of old houses and the demand caused by growing population. (See Houses for All, E. D. Simon. P. 4.)

This does not mean, of course, that only 100,000 houses would be needed to satisfy the requirements of the population, but that 100,000 new houses are needed each year to satisfy that part of their requirements which the workers can afford to pay for—a very different matter.

When the census was taken in 1921, 9.6 per cent, of the population in England and Wales was living in a condition which corresponds with the official definition of overcrowding. (See How to Abolish the Slums, by E. D. Simon. Longmans. 1929. P. 13.) In Manchester the percentage was 7.9,% in the County of London 16.1, in Bermondsey 23.2, and in Shoreditch 32.

E. D. Simon, in the above-mentioned book, questions the value of the official definition of overcrowding. According to that definition, a house is only overcrowded if there are more than two adults to a room (two children under ten count as one adult). Simon suggests a standard of two-and- a-half persons per bedroom, or a standard which holds a house to be overcrowded unless it enables the parents to have one bedroom and enables boys and girls over ten to be separated. (P. 7.)

On either of these standards the percentage of overcrowding would be shown to be far higher. They would, for example, show the overcrowding in Manchester to be at least 25 per cent. instead of only 7.9 per cent.

The Great Post-war Housing Schemes.

All three of the big political parties have had a hand in “solving" the housing problem. The Tories began with the 1851 Act, and the Times (March 25th, 1927) boasted that the Tories had a record of achievement in this direction extending over seventy years. The Liberals and the Labour Party both claim credit for several Acts under which house building has been helped by the Government, through subsidies or otherwise.

The late Mr. Wheatley, prominent member of the I.L.P., was responsible as Minister of Health for the Labour Government’s Housing Act in 1924. Imposing figures have been presented showing what has been done. Up to November, 1932, over 1,800,000 houses had been built since January, 1919, 1,096,387 with State aid and 797,249 without aid., (See Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1932.) The cost to the Government in respect of subsidies is now over £13 million a year, with another £3 million paid out of local rates. (Manchester Guardian, November 12th, 1932.)

As long ago as 1928 the Conservative Party, in a leaflet called “Conservative Social Reform," claimed that their Government had been able "to wipe out the housing Shortage by building nearly 650,000 houses in less than four years."

And yet, after the problem has been “solved" many times during the past century, and after all the chief reformist parties have had a hand in it, supplemented by innumerable philanthropic and semi-philanthropic efforts, the evil is with us still, as huge and as devastating as ever.

Let us see what some acknowledged authorities have to say about the position now or within the past year or two.

The Problem Still Unsolved.

It is true that between 1919 and January, 1927, 768,000 new houses had been built, but most of these were needed to meet the ordinary wastage and the demands of the growing population. Mr. J. G. Martin, Secretary of the National Housing and Town Planning Council (Morning Post, January 14th, 1927), said that less than 100,000 of these 768.000 could be counted towards wiping out the abnormal shortage caused during the War. In January, 1927, therefore, there were still 700,000 houses needed to restore the pre-war position (as compared with 800,000 needed in 1919).

The utmost that can be claimed for the new houses built between 1927 and 1932 is that they have been sufficient to catchup the war-time arrears and restore the pre-war position.

The Eighth Annual Report of the Scottish Board of Health for 1926 said of Glasgow slums: —

The majority of the houses were dark, many of the tenants having to burn gas all day, winter and summer . . . Everywhere we noticed an almost total lack of sanitation. Ceilings are falling down, woodwork is rotting away, there are holes in the walls of houses through which the street can be seen. The houses are a hunting ground for vermin of every description. The tenants complained that they could get no peace from these pests. . . . .

In addition to the insects which I have mentioned we found evidence of a perfect menagerie of animal life, including rats in great numbers, mice, snails and even toads. Can it be wondered that such places breed an unhealthy and discontented people?

(See Morning Post, June 21st, 1927.)

Lieut.-Colonel Freemantle, Medical Officer of Health, in The Housing of the Nation (see Times, March 25th, 1927) said: —

For a large section of the working-class there is really no such thing as home. Home life has no meaning for them. They have no part or lot in such things.

. . .Herded together, family upon family, in the same tenement, in the same room, what chance have they of life worth having in houses, meanly built, crowded round courts, dark, dingy, and out of repair, too often dirty and verminous from generations of tenants past, destitute of life and air, devoid of the necessary equipment for domestic needs, packed tight to help pay the rent that even such accommodation can command.

Mr. F. N. Kay, Medical Officer of Health for the L.C.C., in his report for 1929, said (Daily Herald, October 16th, 1930): —

There are about 30,000 basement dwellings in London which are considered unfit for human occupation.

. . . No worse housing conditions exist anywhere than in the underground rooms of the Metropolis.

The Times editorial (March 25th, 1927), which acclaimed the Tories' seventy years' work for housing, had to admit that the problem was still unsolved, and that even after the war-time shortage had been removed “there will still remain the problem of the slums, and the housing of the people in our great towns."

The Bishop of Southwark (in an article in the Evening Standard, November 9th, 1929), wrote:

On a moderate estimate, that of the last census there are 3½ million persons living in overcrowded conditions; but the standard adopted by the Registrar-General is a very low one . . . If a rather higher standard is adopted, one and a half persons per room, no less than 9,000,000 would be living in overcrowded conditions.

He said that on a very moderate estimate there are over 100,000 persons in London living in insanitary houses or areas.

He said that the subsidised building of houses since the War has—

not drained the slums of their occupants. . . . They have had no appreciable effect on the worst and most overcrowded districts. . . . Usually the new houses are too far away, the slum dweller cannot afford the long journey to and from his daily work. More serious still is the fact that he cannot afford the higher rent required for these houses.

Mr. E. D. Simon (now Sir E. D. Simon, formerly Lord Mayor of Manchester, / Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in the National Government, and Chairman of the Manchester City Council Housing Committee), writing in the Manchester Guardian (August 10th, 1927), pointed out that as regards workers' houses rented at 6s. to 8s. a week:—

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that nothing has yet been done to help these people--just those whose need is greatest.

And further:—

The overcrowding in the low-rented houses is no less than it was in 1919, while the larger houses are under-tenanted.

The same authority on housing conditions (in a letter to the Times, February 12th, 1931) wrote: —

According to all the available evidence there has on the average been no reduction whatever in the terrible overcrowding in the slum areas: the houses are steadily deteriorating; the position of the slum- dwellers is worse than it was ten years ago.

Sir Raymond Unwin, President Royal Institute of British Architects, and formerly a housing official at the Ministry of Health, admits that the houses built since the War have not done more than make up the deficiency of the War years, and that:—

In some ways the housing position is worse than it was in 1921. (M. Guardian, 2 Nov., 1932.)

Mr. Norman McKellen, Secretary of National Federation of House Builders, in a letter to Manchester Guardian (November 12th, 1932), wrote: —

Notwithstanding the annual cost of subsidies, little or nothing has been done to house the poorer working classes; and the National Housing and Town Planning Council, a body largely composed of representatives of local authorities themselves, are reported as saying: “It is lamentable that 14 years after the conclusion of the war medical officers of health should find it necessary to report that there is still a large amount of gross overcrowding, that indecent occupation of sleeping-rooms is not infrequently met with, and that many unhealthy basements are being used as dwellings by the poorer families. Moreover, only the fringe of the slum problem has so far been touched.

Now we have the Government, as an economy measure, stopping the payment of subsidies except for slum clearance, although, in common with the Liberals and the Labour Party, it has hitherto proclaimed subsidies as the only way of tackling the problem. In addition, the Government is negotiating with the building societies for them to take on house building, on condition that in future there shall be twenty instead of twelve houses to the acre—a definite worsening of the standard.

As in the period 1891-1911, the world depression is making the capitalists turn once more to house building owing to the decline of profits in other fields of investment.

Socialism the only Remedy.

There is no remedy except Socialism. There will always be a working class housing problem so long as there is a working class, that is a class producing wealth not for themselves but for the capitalists. None of the schemes of the reformers will touch the problem. The late John Wheatley himself had to confess that his Housing Act was only “patching up the capitalist system," yet his I.L.P. worshippers claimed his Act as the outstanding achievement of his life! What a confession for alleged Socialists to have to make. Municipal and State owned housing estates are no solution at all. The recent eviction case at Dagenham illustrates this. A widow was thrown out of her house by her landlords, the London County Council, in spite of resistance organised by local “direct actionists." In the struggle several were injured on both sides and several workers were imprisoned. Yet it is this municipal capitalism on the Dagenham and other L.C.C. housing estates of which the I.L.P. in its Socialist Annual, 1925, boasted as being instances of “Socialism."

As an actual fact, Judges in the East End of London have several times declared in court that the municipal authorities are more harsh than private landlords in their treatment of tenants who cannot afford to pay their rent.

Cases have come to light of the London County Council refusing to let their houses to workers employed in the Post Office (the institution which the I.L.P. describes as “Socialism in practice"), on the ground that their pay is too low to enable them to afford the rent.

The most damning indictment of capitalism and of reformism is the recent discovery that some houses condemned by Engels as unfit for human habitation in 1844 (see Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844) are still inhabited and overcrowded to-day. (See Some Housing Conditions in Chorlton on Medlock, May, 1931.)

Part of the post-war shortage of new houses is due to the Rent Restriction Acts, which, by keeping rents low, reduced the margin of profit to be made by house building. Thus—as is usually the case— the attempt to reform one evil effect of capitalism creates or aggravates another evil.

The working class should decide to waste no more time and energy on the Liberal-Tory-Labour reformists, and to organise for Socialism. Not till then will the housing and other aspects of the working class poverty problem be solved.

Edgar Hardcastle