1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Housing

Legislation.—Twenty-eight Housing and Health Acts, passedbetween 1851 and 1903, are enumerated by Mr Dewsnup, whosemonograph on The Housing Problem in England is the fullest account ​of the subject published. The first was the Shaftesbury Act of 1851for the establishment of lodging-houses for the working classes;the last was the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1903. TheShaftesbury Act had in view the provision by local authorities ofgood lodging-houses for the better class of artisans, and particularlyof single persons, male and female, though families were also contemplated.It was accompanied in the same year by another act,not included in the list of twenty-eight, for the regulation and controlof common lodging-houses, from which Mr Dewsnup reasonablyinfers that the object of Lord Shaftesbury, who inspired both acts,was the separation of the casual and disorderly class frequentingcommon lodging-houses from the more regularly employed andrespectable workers who were sometimes driven to use them forlack of other accommodation. At any rate this early legislationembodied the principle of differential treatment and showed a graspof the problem not always visible in later procedure. The mostimportant of the subsequent acts were those of 1855 and 1866, bothintended to encourage private enterprise in the provision of working-classdwellings; the Torrens Act of 1868 (Artisans’ and Labourers’Dwellings Act) for the improvement or demolition of existingbuildings; the Cross Act of 1875 (Artisans’ and Labourers’ DwellingsImprovement Act), for extending that process to larger areas; thePublic Health Act of 1875; the Housing of the Working Classes Actof 1885 following the report of the Royal Commission on the Housingof the Working Classes, of which King Edward, then prince ofWales, was a member; the Housing of the Working Classes Act of1890; the Public Health (London) Act of 1891. The acts of 1875(Public Health), of 1890 and of 1891 are still in force. The story ofthis half-century of legislation (which also includes a number ofScotch and Irish acts, local private acts and others bearing on thequestion) is one of tentative efforts first in one direction then inanother, of laws passed, amended, extended, consolidated, superseded.Many of the enactments, originally of limited application,were subsequently extended, and the principal laws now in forceapply to the whole of the United Kingdom. Two main objects canbe distinguished—(1) the treatment of existing dwellings by demolitionor improvement; (2) the construction of new ones. Thesecond head is further subdivided into (a) municipal action, (b)private action. These objects have been alternately promoted bylegislative measures conceived and carried out on no systematicplan, but gradually and continuously developed into an effectivebody of law, particularly with regard to the means of dealing withexisting insanitary dwellings. The advancing requirements ofpublic health are clearly traceable in the series of enactments directedto that end. The Nuisances Removal Act of 1855 took cognizanceof premises in such a state as to be “a nuisance or injurious tohealth,” and made provision for obtaining an order to prohibit theuse of such premises for human habitation. In the same act overcrowdingobtained statutory recognition as a condition dangerous orprejudicial to health, and provision was made for compelling itsabatement. The campaign against bad housing conditions thusinaugurated by the legislature was extended by subsequent acts in1860, 1866 and 1868, culminating in the Cross Act of 1875 for thedemolition (and reconstruction) of large insanitary areas and theextremely important Public Health Act of the same year. Theconstructive policy, begun still earlier in 1851 by Lord Shaftesbury’sAct, was concurrently pursued, and for some years more activelythan the destructive; but after 1866 the latter became more prominent,and though the other was not lost sight of it fell into thebackground until revived by the Royal Commission of 1885 and thehousing legislation which followed, particularly the Housing of theWorking Classes Act of 1890, amending and consolidating previousacts.

Insanitary Areas.—The operation of the Housing Acts ismore susceptible of being stated in figures, though no fully comprehensiveinformation is available. The original Shaftesbury Actof 1851 for erecting municipal lodging-houses appears to have beenpractically inoperative and little or nothing was done for a goodmany years. In 1864, however, Liverpool obtained a private actand entered on the policy of improvement by the demolition ofinsanitary dwellings on a considerable scale, following it up in 1869by re-housing. In 1866 Glasgow, also under a private act, createdan Improvement Trust, administered by the city council, and embarkedon a large scheme of improvement. These seem to havebeen the earliest examples. The Torrens Act of 1868, which embodiedthe improvement policy, did not produce much effect. Accordingto a parliamentary return, during the years 1883–1888, proceedingswere only taken under this act in respect of about 2000 houses inLondon and four provincial towns. More advantage was taken ofthe Cross Act of 1875, which was intended to promote large improvementschemes. Between 1875 and 1885 23 schemes involvinga total area of 51 acres and a population of about 30,000 wereundertaken, in London; and 11 schemes in provincial towns. Byfar the most important of these, and the largest single scheme everundertaken, was one carried out in Birmingham. It affected anarea of 93 acres and involved a net cost of £550,000. Altogetherbetween £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 were raised for improvementschemes under those acts. After the Housing Act of 1890 theclearance policy was continued in London and extended in theprovinces. During the period 1891–1905 loans to the amount ofabout £2,300,000 were raised for improvement schemes by 28provincial towns in England and Wales. The largest of these wereLeeds (£923,000), Manchester (£285,000), Liverpool (£178,000),Sheffield (£131,000), Brighton (£112,000). The Leeds schemeaffected an area of 75 acres, which was cleared at a cost of £500,000.In London the area cleared was raised to a total of 104 acres; thegross cost, down to March 31, 1908, was £3,417,337, the net cost£2,434,096, and the number of persons displaced 48,525. Glasgowhas under its Improvement Trust cleared an area of 88 acres witha population of 51,000. At the same time the policy of dealingwith houses unfit for habitation singly or in small groups by compellingowners to improve them has been pursued by a certainnumber of local authorities. In the six years 1899–1904 actionwas taken each year on the average in respect of about 5000 housesby some 400 local authorities large and small outside London.Representations were made against 33,746 houses, 17,210 wererendered fit for habitation, closing orders were obtained against4220 and demolition orders against 748. These figures do not includecases in which action was taken under local acts and PublicHealth Acts. In Manchester, between 1885 and 1905, nearly 10,000“back-to-back” houses were closed and about half of them reopenedafter reconstruction. Hull, an old seaport town with agreat deal of extremely bad housing, has made very effective use ofthe method of gradual improvement and has transformed its worstareas without appearing in any list of improvement schemes. Inrecent years this procedure has been systematically taken up inBirmingham and other places, and has been strongly advocated byMr J. S. Nettlefold (Practical Housing) in preference to large improvementschemes on account of the excessive expense involvedby the latter in buying up insanitary areas. In the six years 1902–1907Birmingham dealt with 4111 houses represented as unfit forhabitation; 1780 were thoroughly repaired, 1005 were demolished;the rest were under notice or in course of repair at the end of theperiod. Among other towns which have adopted this policy areLiverpool, Cardiff, York, Warrington and two London boroughs.

Building.—On the constructive side the operation of the HousingActs has been less extensive and much less general. In Londonalone has the erection of working-class dwellings by municipalaction and organized private enterprise assumed large proportions.Philanthropic societies were first in the field and date from a periodanterior to legislation, which however, stimulated their activity formany years by affording facilities. Fourteen organizations were inoperation in London prior to 1890 and some of them on a large scale;others have since been formed. The earliest was the MetropolitanAssociation for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrial Classes,whose operations date from 1847; it has built 1441 tenementscontaining 5105 rooms. The largest of these enterprises are theImproved Industrial Dwellings Company (1864), which has built5421 tenements containing 19,945 rooms; the Peabody Fund(1864) with 5469 tenements containing 12,328 rooms; the Artisans’,Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company (1867), with 1467tenements containing 3495 rooms, and 6195 cottage dwellings;the East-End Dwellings Company (1885) with 2096 tenementscontaining 4276 rooms; the Guinness Trust (1889) with 2574tenements containing 5338 rooms. The Artisans’ Dwellings Companyalone has housed upwards of 50,000 persons. In addition tothese there are the Rowton Houses (1892), which are hotels forworking men, six in number, accommodating 5162 persons. Sofar as can be estimated, private enterprise has housed some 150,000persons in improved dwellings in London on a commercial basis.The early activity of the building companies was largely due to thepolicy of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which adopted extensiveimprovement schemes and sold the cleared sites to the companies,who carried out the re-housing obligations imposed by the law.Since the London County Council, which replaced the Board ofWorks in 1889, adopted the policy of undertaking its own re-housing,their activity has greatly diminished. The buildings erected by themare nearly all in the form of blocks of tenements; the Artisans’Dwellings Company, which has built small houses and shops inoutlying parts of London, is an exception. The tenement blocks arescattered about London in many quarters. For instance the PeabodyFund has 18 sets of dwellings in different situations, theMetropolitan Association has 14; the Artisans’ Dwellings Companyhas 10; the Guinness Trust has 8. In 1909 an important additionto the list of philanthropic enterprises in London was put in handunder the will of Mr W. R. Sutton, who left nearly £2,000,000 forthe purpose of providing improved working-class dwellings. Theerection of tenement blocks containing accommodation for 300families was begun on a site in the City Road. In only a few provincialtowns has private enterprise contributed to improved housingin a similar manner and that not upon a large scale; among them areNewcastle, Leeds, Hull, Salford and Dublin.

Municipal Building has been more generally adopted. Thefollowing details are taken from Mr W. Thompson’s Housing up toDate, which gives comprehensive information down to the end of1906. The number of local authorities which had then availedthemselves of part iii. of the Housing Act of 1890, which providesfor the erection of working-class dwellings, was 142. They werethe London County Council, 12 Metropolitan Boroughs, 69 CountyBoroughs and Town Councils, 49 Urban District Councils and 12Rural District Councils. The dwellings erected are classified aslodging-houses, block dwellings, tenement houses, cottage flats andcottages. Lodging-houses have been built by 12 towns, of which8 are in England, 3 in Scotland (Glasgow, Aberdeen and Leith) and1 in Ireland (Belfast). The total number of beds provided was6218, of which Glasgow accounts for 2414, London for 1846, Manchesterand Salford together for 648. Four other towns have builtor are building municipal lodging-houses for which no details areavailable. The other municipal dwellings erected are summarizedas follows:—

It appears from these figures that municipal building has providedfor a smaller number of persons in the whole of the United Kingdomthan private enterprise in London alone. The principal townswhich have erected dwellings in blocks are London (7786), Glasgow(2300), Edinburgh (596), Liverpool (501), Dublin (460) and Manchester(420). The great majority of such dwellings contain eithertwo or three rooms. Tenement houses have been built in Liverpool(1424), Manchester (308), Sheffield (192), Aberdeen (128), and inseven other towns on a small scale. Such tenements are generallysomewhat larger than those built in blocks; the proportion of three- andfour-roomed dwellings is higher and only a small number consistof a single room. Cottage flats have been built in Dublin (528),West Ham (401), Battersea (320), Plymouth (238), East Ham (212),and on a small scale in Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and sevenother places. The majority of the cottage flats contain three ormore rooms, a considerable proportion have four rooms. Cottages ​have been built in 67 places, chiefly small towns and suburbandistricts. Of the large towns which have adopted this class ofdwellings Salford stands first with 633 cottages; three Londonboroughs, all on the south side of the Thames, have built 234;Manchester has 228, Sheffield 173, Huddersfield 157, Birmingham103. The number of rooms in municipal cottages ranges fromthree to eight, but the great majority of these dwellings have fouror five rooms.

Some further details of municipal housing in particular towns areof interest. In London, the work of the London County Councildown to March 31, 1908, not including three lodging-homes containing1845 cubicles, is given in the official volume of London Statistics,published by the Council, as follows:—

With regard to the cost, it is to be noted that the actual cost of theland purchased for improvement schemes was very much greaterthan that stated, having been written down to an arbitrary figurecalled “housing valuation.” The financial accounts of L.C.C.dwellings for the year ending March 31, 1908, are thus summarized:—

It appears from this that if the actual commercial cost of the landwere taken the housing of the Council would be run at a considerableannual loss. The occupations of the tenants are stated in thefollowing proportions: labourers 789, clerks 312, policemen 251,shop assistants 202, warehousemen 183, printers 182, charwomen182, tailors 155, cabinetmakers 146, canvassers 122, cigarettemakers 118, widows 116, tram drivers 110, postmen 107, packers 97,engineers 87, dressmakers 41, coachmen 31, motormen 26, milliners19. These proportional figures show that though a considerablenumber of labourers have been housed, the great majority of theoccupants of London municipal dwellings are of a superior class.The mean weekly rent in London County Council dwellings is2s. 101/2d. per room against 2s. 4d. in dwellings erected by otheragencies. The most important feature of the County Council’spolicy in recent years has been the acquisition of suburban sites forthe erection of cottages. There are four such sites, two on thesouth, one on the north and one on the west side of London; thetotal area is 349 acres, and the total accommodation contemplatedis for 66,000 persons at an estimated cost of £3,105,840; the presentaccommodation is for about 8000. In addition to the housingprovided by the County Council, fourteen London Borough Councilsand the City Corporation had at the beginning of 1909 erected oradapted 3136 dwellings containing 7999 rooms.

In Liverpool, down to 1907, about £920,000 had been spent inclearing insanitary areas and building new dwellings; the demolitionof about 8000 houses and purchase of land cost about£500,000; and the erection of 2046 dwellings, containing 4961rooms, cost about £350,000. The size of the dwellings and thenumber of each class are: 1 room, 193; 2 rooms, 965; 3 rooms,719; 4 rooms, 167. The great majority are in tenement houses ofthree storeys. The mean weekly rent is 1s. 61/2d. per room, but alarge number are let at less. The net return on the total outlay isjust over 1%, on the building outlay it is 22/3%. The principalclasses of persons occupying the dwellings are labourers 675, carters120, charwomen 103, firemen 93, porters 80, hawkers 64, sailors 45,scavengers 40. These all belong to the poorest classes, living bycasual or irregular work. Liverpool has, in fact, succeeded morethan any other town in providing municipal dwellings in which thereally poor can afford to live.

In Manchester 956 dwellings have been built at a total cost forbuilding and improvement of £451,932; of the whole number 420are in blocks, 308 in tenement houses and 228 in cottages. Therents are much higher than in Liverpool; in the tenement housesthe mean weekly rent is about 6d. per room more than in Liverpool.The gross profit on the block dwellings is 11/3% on the capital outlay,on the tenement houses 3%, on the cottages 22/3%. “The totalloss during the last seven to ten years, including loan charges, hasamounted to about £54,240” (Thompson).

In Glasgow the corporation has built under improvement schemes2280 new dwellings containing 4013 rooms and 241 shops. Thedwellings, which are all in blocks and centrally situated, are occupiedchiefly by artisans; only 28% have been reserved for the poorestclass of tenants. The total amount taken from the rates on thisaccount in 30 years is £600,000. Dwellings valued at £400,000 forbuilding and £300,000 for land give a net return of 3.06% on outlay;dwellings valued at £280,000 for land and building return3.03% on outlay; leaving the sinking fund charges to be defrayedout of rates.

In Edinburgh insanitary areas have been bought for £107,023and new dwellings containing 1032 rooms have been built for £87,970.Nearly all the dwellings are of one or two rooms only. The rentscharged average about 2s. a week per room; actual rents receivedaverage 1s. 4d. per room and they have to be subsidized out of therates to the extent of 2s. 3d. per room to meet the cost of site.

In Dublin provision has been or was in 1909 shortly to be madefor housing 5394 families or 19,000 persons; of which 1041 families,or about one-fifth, are housed by the Corporation, the rest bycompanies and private persons. Altogether it was estimated that£500,000 would be spent under the act of 1890. Fifteen streets,containing 1665 houses, have been declared unhealthy areas by themedical officer, and between 1879 and 1909 more than 3000 houseswere closed as unfit for habitation.

Co-operative Building.—Municipal and philanthropic housing by nomeans exhaust the efforts that have been made to provide working-classdwellings outside the ordinary building market. Their specialfunction has been to substitute better dwellings for pre-existingbad ones, which is the most costly and difficult, as well as the mosturgent, part of the problem in old towns. But in the provision ofnew dwellings alone they have been far surpassed by organized self-helpin different forms. Down to 1906 there had been built 46,707houses by 413 co–operative societies at a cost of nearly £10,000,000.They are most numerous in the manufacturing towns and particularlyin the north-western district of England. Of the wholenumber 8530 were owned by the societies which built them; 5577had been sold to members, and 32,600 had been built by memberson money lent by the societies. These figures do not include theparticular form of co-operative building known as co-partnershiphousing, which will be mentioned later on, or the operations of theso-called building societies, which are really companies lendingmoney to persons on mortgage for the purpose of building. Thedifference between them and the co-operative societies which dothe same thing is that the latter retain the element of co-operationby lending only to their own members, whereas the building societiesdeal in the open market. Their operations are on an immensescale; at the end of 1908 the invested funds of the registered buildingsocieties exceeded £72,000,000. An agency working on thisscale, which far exceeds the operations of all the others put together,is obviously an important factor in housing. The number of housesbuilt must help to relieve congestion, and since they are built tosuit the owners or tenants they cannot be of the worst class. Theyalso represent a form of thrift, and deserve notice on that account.

The Small Dwellings Acquisition Act of 1899, which has notpreviously been mentioned, was intended to facilitate the buildingor purchase of small houses by their tenants by means of loansadvanced by local authorities. Down to 1906 about £82,000 hadbeen so advanced by 5 county boroughs, 17 urban councils and 1rural district council.

Housing by Employers.—No comprehensive information is availableon this head, but it has not been an important factor in towns,being chiefly confined to agricultural, mining and suburban manufacturingdistricts. The former two belong to the subject of RuralHousing, which is separately discussed below; the third has aninterest of its own on account of its connexion with “model settlements.”The building of houses for their workpeople by industrialemployers has never been widely adopted in this country, but ithas attracted considerable attention at two different periods. SirTitus Salt was a pioneer in this direction, when he built his woollenmills at Saltaire, on the outskirts of Bradford, and housed his workpeopleon the spot. That plan was maintained by his successors,who still own some 900 excellent and cheap cottages, and wasadopted by a few other manufacturers in the same neighbourhood.Saltaire was a model settlement with many institutions for thebenefit of the mill-hands, and as such it attracted much attention;but the example was not generally followed, and the interest lapsed.Recently it has been revived by the model settlements at PortSunlight, near Liverpool, started about 1888, Bournville nearBirmingham (1895), and Earswick, near York (1904), which are of amuch more elaborate character. Elsewhere, employers setting downworks in some new locality where no provision existed, have had tobuild houses for their workmen; but they have done so in a plainway, and this sort of housing has not assumed large proportions.

The foregoing facts apply only to England and Wales. In Scotlandthe state of things is much less satisfactory. No statistics of overcrowdingare available, but the following comparative table showshow different the housing conditions are in the two countries:—

Over 50% of the population of Scotland live in tenements of oneor two rooms; only 8.2% in England. A comparison of the largesttowns in the two countries gives the following result:—

The conditions in Scottish towns where very tall tenement housesare common, resemble those in other countries, in which overcrowdingis far greater than in England. All these matters are comparative,and the superiority of conditions in England ought to be recognized.Yet, in Scotland, too, great improvements have been effected. In1861 there were 25,959 houses without windows; in 1901 only 130.These facts throw light on the long standing of the housing question,the change of standard and the improvement effected.

In Ireland there is more overcrowding than in England, thoughprobably less than in Scotland, with the possible exception ofDublin, which has a larger proportion of one-roomed dwellings thanany Scottish town, namely, 24.7%. The percentage of populationliving in overcrowded conditions in the principal towns is—Dublin40.6, Limerick 31.7, Cork 23.4, Waterford 20.6, Londonderry 16.7,Belfast 8.2.

Rents.—Rent is a matter of great importance from every pointof view, and that is now being realized. A quantity of officialinformation on the subject has been collected and made availableby an elaborate inquiry ordered by the Board of Trade in 1905 andpublished in 1908 (Cd. 3864). It relates to working class dwellingsin the principal industrial towns in the United Kingdom, 94 in all:namely, 77 in England and Wales, 11 in Scotland and 6 in Ireland.The following tables give in a condensed form the chief statisticalresults obtained in October 1905:—

Rents are lowest in Ireland and next lowest in English provincialtowns, considerably higher in Scotland and highest of all in London,for which further special details are given. It is divided into threezones (1) central, (2) middle, (3) outer, which have the followingmean weekly rents:—

In central London—which extends to Stepney in the East, Lambethm the South, Islington in the North, and includes Westminster,Holborn, Finsbury, Marylebone, Shoreditch, most of Bethnal Green,Southwark and Bermondsey—the rent of a single room may beas high as 6s. or even 6s. 6d. (Holborn) a week. It is here thatovercrowding is greatest, and block-tenements, philanthropic andmunicipal, most numerous. The rentals of the block dwellings havenot been taken into account in the foregoing official statistics;they range as follows: 1 room, 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 2 rooms, 5s. to 8s.;three rooms, 6s. 6d. to 11s. The lowest rent for which a singleroom can be obtained in this area is 2s. 6d. a week. In no Englishtown are rents nearly so high as in London. If 100 is taken as theindex number for rent in London the nearest towns to it (Croydonand Plymouth) only reach 81, and one town on the list (Macclesfield)is as low as 32. The index number of twenty-one towns out of thewhole is 50 or under, and these include a number of importantindustrial centres—Hull, Leicester, Blackburn, Northampton,Warrington, Coventry, Crewe and others. The index numbers ofthe great towns are: Liverpool 65, Manchester and Salford 62,Birmingham 59, Leeds 56, Sheffield 55, Bristol 53, Bradford 59,Hull 48; that is to say the level of rents in these towns is littlemore than half that in London. This is one more proof of the untypicalcharacter of London, and of the fallacy of generalizing fromit to the rest of the country. Even in the overcrowded towns onTyneside rents do not run to three-fourths of the London level.When the towns are divided into geographical groups the indexnumbers run thus: London 100, Northern Counties 62, Yorkshire56, Lancashire and Cheshire 54, Midlands 51, Eastern Counties 50,Southern Counties 61, Wales and Monmouth 60. Rents are alwayshighest in capitals, and Edinburgh complies with the rule; but it isvery slightly in advance of Glasgow, and in Scotland generally therange is much smaller than in England. Dublin, on the other hand,is differentiated from the other Irish towns as widely as Londonfrom English ones.

A general and progressive rise in rents has been taking place formany years. The following index numbers for the great towns are ​given in the second series of memoranda published by the Board ofTrade in 1904 (Cd. 1761):—

The tendency to rise is attributable to increased cost of labour,due to higher wages and less work, increased cost of materials andhigher rates. Weekly working-class rents generally include rateswhich are paid by the landlord. Housing reform has contributedto the rise, both directly and through the rates, on which it hasthrown a heavy burden in various ways. When slums are clearedaway and replaced by superior dwellings the new rents are generallyhigher than the old and this fact has proved a great difficulty. Mostof the improved housing is beyond the means of those who need itmost, and they seek other quarters resembling the old ones as nearlyas possible. The example of Liverpool, which has the largestproportion of casual and ill-paid labour of all the great towns, andhas been the most successful in providing new dwellings of a fairquality, centrally situated and not in blocks, at really low rates,shows that the problem is not insoluble; but as a rule too littleattention is paid to the question of rent in housing reform, especiallyin building undertaken by municipalities. It is not ignored, but theimportance attached to it by the poor is not realized. To them it isthe first consideration after four walls, a roof and a fire-place;and 6d. a week makes a vast difference in their calculations. Reformwhich aims at raising the lowest classes of tenants by improvingtheir dwellings defeats itself when it drives them away.

The following is a list of the principal associations formed for thepromotion of housing reform: Mansion House Council on the Dwellingsof the Poor, Rural Housing and Sanitation Association, Workmen’sNational Housing Council, National Housing Reform Council,Co-partnership Tenants Housing Council. They are all of recentdate, except the first. There are also local associations at Liverpool,Oldham, Rochdale, York, Plymouth, and elsewhere.

Austria.—An act for encouraging the building of cheap working-classdwellings was passed in 1902; it provides for exemption fromtaxes for 24 years of working-class dwellings which fulfil certainconditions including sanitary requirements, a minimum area perroom, minimum height, minimum door and window spaces, thicknessof walls, a maximum number of inhabitants (one to 4 sq. metres insleeping rooms), prohibition of lodgers, fixed rent and maximumprofit. The municipalities are the authority for administering sanitaryand housing laws; they have no power of compulsory purchase ofland without a special law. There is excessive overcrowding in thelarge towns; in Vienna (1900) 43% of the population live in dwellingsof 1 room or 1 room and a kitchen; in 60 provincial towns the proportionis 63%. Overcrowding is reckoned at more than 5 personsto a room and more than 9 to two rooms; the proportion of overcrowdedon this basis is nearly one-fifth in Vienna and one-fourth inthe provincial towns (Thompson).

Belgium.—An act was passed in 1889 instituting Comités dePatronage; since then other Acts relating to loan societies, and toinheritance and succession in the case of small properties. Comitésde Patronage are semi-official bodies, but without legal power, whosefunction it is to study the subject of housing, to report to localauthorities on existing conditions, to advise, to collect funds andpromote the provision of good houses by any means in their power.They influence public opinion and stimulate the activity of localauthorities which have the power to compel improvements and closedwellings unfit for habitation; they have led to the formation ofnumerous societies for erecting working-class dwellings. The latterare encouraged by the law in various ways; they are exempt fromthe payment of some government duties and partly exempt fromothers. Working men buying or building houses liable to registrationfees up to from 72 to 171 francs are exempted from personal, provincialand communal taxes. The National Savings Bank of Belgiumis empowered to lend money to working men for buying or buildinghouses and to insure the lives of those doing so, to preserve thehome for the family. In 1904 the number of workmen’s homesexempted from taxation was 164,387, and the amount of taxationremitted considerably exceeded 3 million francs; workmen hadacquired lands and houses valued at nearly £4,000,000; there were161 societies for building working-class dwellings; 30,000 workmenrepresenting a population of 150,000 had become owners of property;and 70,000 representing a population of 350,000 had availed themselvesof the law in obtaining exemptions and loans (O. Velghe).The foregoing results effected in 15 years are remarkable and indicatea great capacity for self-help on the part of Belgian workmen withsuitable and well-considered assistance. But this movement, incommon with those of a similar character in other countries, does nottouch the problem of housing the very poor. No statistics of overcrowdingare available, but the average number of persons to adwelling is over 5 for the whole country and nearly 9 in Brussels.The communal administrations are the authorities for health andhousing; they have power to abate nuisances but not to compellandowners to sell land for building, though they have the right todispossession for “public purposes.” No town has constructedquarters devoted entirely to working-class dwellings and only onecommune (St Giles) has built any. In towns the height of buildingsis regulated by the width of streets; generally it is the width plus6 metres. The height of rooms and thickness of walls are prescribedby local regulations but not the area of rooms. The housing difficultyhas been lessened in a notable degree by cheap transport facilities,including railroads, light railroads and tramways; a large proportionof the workpeople travel long distances to and from work. One-quartertravel on the State railways alone; fares are 1s. 6d. a weekfor a daily double journey of 20 m., 2s. for 44 m. and 2s. 6d. for66 m. The area of the labour market of Liége extends nearly toOstend and out of 5830 workmen travelling over 1000 live morethan 50 kilometres from Liége. Some journeys last 3 hours.

France.—The question of housing was publicly raised in Francequite as early as in England on grounds of public health in connexionwith the first visitation of cholera, and building societies wereformed as early as 1851, but little was done until after 1889, when theSociété Française des Habitations à Bon Marché was founded underthe inspiration of M. Siegfried. This led to the formation of severalsocieties, which increased rapidly after the passage of la loi Siegfriedin 1894, for promoting the provision of working-class dwellings. In1902 a Public Health Act and in 1906 a Housing of the WorkingClasses Act were passed, and these three enactments with regulationsmade in 1907 govern the procedure. The act of 1906 embodies theBelgian system of Comités de Patronage, of which at least one wasto be established in each department with grants in aid, and exemptionsfrom certain taxes of working-class dwellings fulfillingspecified conditions as to sanitation and rent. The law promotesthe formation of Housing Societies by granting various facilities forthe investment of money in building by public bodies and benevolentinstitutions by taking shares or by loans. Down to the end of 1906there had been lent for this purpose £233,000 by savings banks,£258,000 by the Caisse des Dépôts, and £14,000 by charitable institutions.The law does not authorize municipalities to buildhouses and none of the communes have acquired land for this purpose.Under the Public Health Act of 1902 towns can purchase landcompulsorily in connexion with unhealthy areas. The Public Healthand Housing Acts are administered by the local authority, whichmakes regulations for building and for laying out building land. Aminimum height of 2.6 metres and a minimum cubical content of25 cubic metres are prescribed for rooms; there are no regulationsfor thickness of walls. Housing societies are under the Ministry ofWorks and a Superior Housing Council, which is a central advisorybody. These societies are now numerous; there are 46 in Parisalone, but their operations are not on a large scale. One of themdeserves special notice on account of its special object. It is calledthe Société de logements pour familles nombreuses and it builds specialflats called maisons des enfants which are let at low rents only topersons with large families. In 1907 it had housed 168 families,averaging 6.8 persons, in two blocks at Belleville and Montmartre.The great defect in France is the large quantity of old, bad, insanitaryhousing. Real slums exist in all the old towns and in some of them,such as Marseilles and Lyons, on an extensive scale. Very littlehas hitherto been done to grapple with this difficulty. The standardof sanitation is altogether lower in France than in England, as isshown by the death-rates, and this holds good of the housing. Butconditions vary widely in different parts of the country. They arebetter, generally speaking, in the industrial towns of the north,which are largely Flemish and distinguished by the prevalence ofsmall houses after the English fashion, than in the central or southerndistricts where tall old tenement houses of six and seven storeysabound. There are no statistics and no standard of overcrowding;but the careful inquiry carried out by the Board of Trade and publishedin 1909 shows the extraordinary prevalence of tenements consistingof 1, 2 or 3 rooms. In 16 towns for which information was obtainedthe average proportion of dwellings containing less than 4 roomswas 75% of the whole; in some it was as high as 89% and in nonelower than 61%. In 8 towns, including Paris, the number of one-roomeddwellings was more than a quarter of the whole, and in twotowns (Brest and Fougères) it was more than half. Some correspondingstatistics for English and German towns are given below in thesection on Germany. According to the same report, the generalaccuracy of which has been confirmed by personal inquiries, madein 1909 by the writer in a number of towns, rents are decidedlylower in France. If the London level be taken as 100 that of Parisis only 78 and the other French towns are considerably lower, 21 outof 29 being less than half the London standard. A general comparisonbetween a number of English and French towns shows theaverage level of French rents to be less than three-fourths of Englishones. A noticeable feature of housing in France is the large numberof dwellings built by employers in recent years. The mining companies,particularly in the Pas de Calais, have built whole groups ofvillages; the railway companies and various manufacturers havealso done a great deal, chiefly in rural areas. Among the manufacturersMM. Schneider at Le Creusot and the textile mill-ownersin the Vosges are noticeable. The houses provided areof a charming type, white with red roofs; the rooms are of goodsize, the rents low, and a large garden is usually attached to everyhouse.

Germany.—In no country is the problem of housing more acute ​than in Germany, where the increase of population, the growth ofmanufacturing industry and the urbanization of the people haveproceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace in recent years and havecombined with increasing wealth and a rising standard of living toforce the question into prominence. Up to 1909 no uniform legislationfor the empire had been framed and no central authorityexisted for dealing with housing; but the several states have theirown public health and housing laws, and great activity has beendeveloped in various directions. The most general difficulty isdeficiency of quantity consequent on the rapid change in the distributionof the population. The proportion of the whole populationliving in the great towns increased from 7.2% to 16.2%, or morethan doubled between 1890 and 1900; in England it only increasedby about one-tenth. Slums are a much less conspicuous featurethan in England because of the comparatively recent developmentof German towns, but where old quarters exist on a large scale, asin Hamburg, the conditions are quite as bad as anything in Englishtowns, and call for similar measures. Public sanitation in Germanyis still as a whole less advanced than in England; but in somecases it is superior and in general it is coming up rapidly; theadministration of sanitary laws, as of others, is more effective anduniform, and less subject to evasion. This also contributes to thecomparative absence of slums. And there is a third factor whichhas perhaps the greatest influence of all, and that is the superiormanner in which German homes are kept. But the pressure ofinadequate quantity is urgent; it has caused high rents, overcrowding,and the development of large barrack or block dwellingswhich are becoming the prevailing type. At the same time it hasled to many and varied efforts to meet the difficulty. Isolatedattempts go back to an early date. For instance a building societywas formed in Berlin in 1849, Alfred Krupp began to build his“colonies” at Essen in 1863, Barmen started a society in 1871 andthere were other cases; but general attention seems first to havebeen drawn to the subject by the reforming efforts of Pastor Bodelschwinghat Bielefeld about 1884 in connexion with his Arbeiterheim.In short housing reform in Germany is really a matter of the last20 years. The first efficient by-laws for regulating building inBerlin were not adopted till 1887; the previous regulations datingfrom 1853 permitted many abuses and under them a great deal ofbad housing was constructed, especially after the establishmentof the empire and the beginning of the great development of thecapital.

The worst feature is the general prevalence of dwellings containinga very small number of rooms—from 1 to 3—and consequentovercrowding. The following figures are extracted from the Reportto the Board of Trade on Rents, Housing, &c., in Germany (1908,Cd. 4032). They indicate the proportion of dwellings containing1, 2 or 3 rooms, or (in a few cases) the proportion of the populationliving in such dwellings. The towns are those for which the informationis given. They are not selected as particularly badspecimens but as representative, and they include most of thecapitals and chief industrial centres. The figures relate to the year1900, except in a few cases, in which they are taken from a municipalhouse census in 1905.

The figures must be read with a certain amount of caution, as theyare not in every case compiled on a precisely uniform method withregard to inclusion of kitchens and attics. For this reason theposition of Bremen and Elberfeld is probably more unfavourablethan it ought to be. But broadly the table shows that in most ofthe large towns in Germany more than half, and in some cases morethan three-quarters of the dwellings have less than 4 rooms. Leipzigis the most striking exception. If working-class quarters alone aretaken it is found that dwellings of more than 3 rooms are so fewas to be negligible. In Stuttgart, where housing is very dear, thepercentages for working-class quarters are—1 room 21.0, 2 rooms51.8, 3 rooms 26.9; total under 4 rooms 98.7. Königshütte, the chiefcoal and iron centre in Silesia and a purely working-class town,shows the same state of things; 60% of the whole population livein dwellings of 2 rooms and 87% in less than four. It is interestingto compare English towns. The proportion of dwellings containingless than 4 rooms in London was (1901) 52.2%, in Berlin 75.8%;the proportion of the population living in such dwellings was—London38.7%, Berlin 71.5%. Not only is the proportion of smalldwellings very much higher in Berlin but the proportion of thepopulation living in them shows a far greater discrepancy. Thisindicates a much higher degree of overcrowding. The only pointin which Berlin has the advantage is the smaller number of single-roomdwellings. The proportions are London 14.7%, Berlin 8.0%.But it is to be observed that overcrowding is not so common in1–room dwellings, which are often occupied by a single person, asin those with 2 or 3 rooms, which are occupied by families, thoughprobably the most extreme cases of overcrowding occur in particular1–room dwellings. In the English county boroughs the proportion ofdwellings with less than 4 rooms was 24.0%, in other urban districts17.4, and in all urban areas including London 26.4%. When allallowance is made for minor errors and discrepancies it may bebroadly concluded that the proportion of small dwellings containingless than 4 rooms is at least twice as great in German as in Englishtowns, and that the conditions as to accommodation which inEngland prevail only in London are general in urban Germany.As a set-off German rooms are generally larger than English onesand in block dwellings there is often a little ante-room or landingwhich does not count but really increases the space.

The German census does not take cognisance of overcrowding andthere is no general official standard; but some towns have adopteda standard of their own, namely, six or more persons to 1 room andten or more to 2 rooms. In Breslau, which is one of the worsttowns, 17.5% of the population (53,000) of the “city” or innerring were overcrowded on this basis in 1900. In Barmen, which isnot one of the worst, 20% of the 2-roomed and 17% of the 3-roomeddwellings (together housing more than half the population) wereovercrowded according to the English standard. Overcrowdingand other bad conditions are worst in the basement or cellar dwellings,of which some towns have a very large number. In Breslau15,000 persons were living in 3853 such dwellings in 1900; inBerlin 91,426 persons were living in 24,088 basements. Some ofthese are free from objection, but 11,147, housing 38,663 persons,were situated in back buildings and unfit for habitation on accountof darkness, damp, dilapidation and the like. “Back” housesare a feature of old towns; they are houses which do not give onthe street but lie behind and are approached by a passage; they arewhat we call courts and quite as insanitary as anything of the kindin English towns.

With regard to rents the Board of Trade (London) Report givesthe following figures for Berlin and a number of other towns:—

Rents are higher in Berlin than in any other town, thoughStuttgart comes very near it. The following table of index numbersshows the relations of 32 towns to Berlin:—

Comparing rents in Germany and England, the Board of TradeReport gives the following table, to which the corresponding ratio

If the mean of the English and German figures be taken it showsa very slight difference in favour of Germany; the mean weekly rentper room being 1s. 5d. in England and 1s. 43/4d. in Germany. But inEngland rent usually includes local taxation (rates) whereas inGermany it does not; if this be added German rents are to Englishas 123 to 100, or nearly one-fourth more.

The statistics given above indicate a wide range of variation inthe conditions prevailing in different towns in Germany; and thatholds good with regard to improvements. The administration ofthe laws relating to public health and housing is in the hands of thelocal authorities. The public health service is generally efficientand sometimes very good. Increasing attention has been paid inrecent years to the sanitary inspection of houses and in some townsit is now thorough and systematic, but active efforts to deal withold and insanitary quarters en masse are isolated and exceptional.Hamburg is an instance; scared by the visitation of cholera in 1892the authorities put in hand an extensive improvement scheme onthe English plan at a cost of half a million sterling. But demolitionis exceptional; slums are usually subjected to supervision and arenot allowed to be in a state of dilapidation, and sometimes, as atMannheim, notices are served to abate overcrowding. In Municha policy of gradually buying up insanitary houses has been adopted.But improvement has principally been promoted by new buildingand the reduction of the population in old insanitary quarters, towhich cheap locomotive facilities have greatly contributed. Thegreat bulk of urban Germany is new, and the most valuable contributionmade by it to the housing question is the more effectivecontrol of new building and particularly the principle of town-planning,coupled with the purchase of neighbouring ground witha view to future extension. This policy is comparatively recent andstill very partially applied, but it is now rapidly extending. Ageneral act providing for the planning of streets was passed inPrussia in 1875 and still forms the basis of building legislation;but as noted above no effective by-laws were adopted even in Berlinuntil after 1887, and consequently a very faulty style of buildingwas adopted, especially in large blocks which conceal grave defectsbehind an imposing exterior. The Saxon towns have been conspicuouslysuccessful in regard to housing. Leipzig stands aloneamong German towns in having 83.4% of its population living indwellings of 4 rooms and upwards. Yet it is a great commercialcity, the fifth in the empire, with a population of upwards of half amillion. It also comes low on the rent table, having an index numberlittle more than half that of Berlin. All the Saxon towns are low,Chemnitz and Zwickau particularly so, and the position of Dresden,being a capital, is remarkable. More than two-thirds of the populationlive in dwellings of 4 rooms or more, and the rent index numberis only 54. In Saxony a general Building Act, especially providingfor town planning, was passed in 1900; and the Grand Duchy ofHesse, which alone among the German states has a governmentHousing Department, adopted a Housing of the Working ClassesAct in 1902. Other states have followed or are following and theair is full of movement. The distinctive features of urban housingreform in Germany are (1) the systematic planning of extensions,(2) purchase of ground by municipalities, (3) letting or sale of municipalland for building under prescribed conditions. Many of thegreat towns, including Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Cologne,Frankfort and Düsseldorf, are owners of land to a variable butsometimes large extent. This policy seems to have been originallyadopted on economic grounds and those municipalities which boughtor otherwise came into possession of town land at an early datederive a substantial revenue from it now, besides being in a positionto promote housing improvement. There is comparatively littlemunicipal building, and that as a rule only or principally for municipalservants, as at Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Nuremberg; butthere seems to be a tendency to venture further in this directionand some towns have built houses for letting. The municipalitiesgenerally sell or let their land, and the building agencies which enjoymost official favour are the societies “of public utility”; they areencouraged in every way and have greatly developed, particularlyin the Rhine province. Some are co-operative, others semi-philanthropicin that they aim at building good houses and limit theirprofits. In 1901 the Prussian Government issued an order urgingmunicipalities to support these societies by remitting the cost ofconstructing streets and sewers, placing the assistance of buildingofficials at their disposal, taking their shares, lending them moneyand becoming security for them. A great deal of public moneyhas been advanced to building societies, and one very importantsource of supply has been developed, since the Old Age and InfirmityInsurance Act of 1889, in the National Insurance Fundswhich invest their surplus capital in this way. Down to 1906 theBoards of insurance had lent £8,650,000 to societies for building;the Imperial Government had lent £1,250,000, thePrussian Government £1,825,000, and the other statesfurther large sums in addition to the municipalities.Money lent by the state is usually limited to buildinghouses for state employees and Insurance Boardslend on condition that the houses are let to personswho come under the insurance laws. The developmentof building societies has been promoted by theformation of general building associations of whichthe earliest was established in Düsseldorf in 1897 for the Rhineprovinces; under its influence one-fifth of the new housing providedin 1901 was erected by the societies. The example was followedat Frankfort, Münster and Wiesbaden. Housing by employers hasalso been carried out on a large scale in Germany. States andmunicipalities have to some extent built houses as employers, theformer chiefly for railwaymen, besides lending money to societiesfor the purpose; but most housing of this kind has been done byprivate employers. Krupps, who had built 4274 dwellings housingnearly 27,000 persons down to 1901, are the most famous example;but they are only one among many. In Rhineland and Westphaliaemployers had in 1902 provided 22,269 houses containing 62,539dwellings at a cost of £10,500,000; more than half the families sohoused belonged to the mining industry, the rest to various manufactures.These two provinces, in which industrial developmenthas been extremely rapid, are exceptional; but housing by employersis not confined to them. At Mannheim for instance over1000 working-class households have been so provided. At Nurembergthe Siemens Schuckert Company have encouraged an interestingsystem of collective building among their employees, by which 722dwellings have been provided.

Holland.—In 1901 a Public Health and a Housing Act werepassed, and these two embody most of the features of housing reformadopted in other countries. The first provides for a general sanitaryservice under the Ministry of the Interior. The second ordains thatlocal authorities shall frame by-laws for building and for the maintenanceand proper use of dwellings; that they shall inspect existingdwellings, order improvements or repairs or demolition; empowersthem to take land compulsorily for the purposes of the act, toprohibit building or rebuilding on sites reserved for public purposesand to make grants or loans to societies or companies operatingexclusively for the improvement of working-class dwellings. Ifthey fail to make by-laws the provincial authorities may takeaction. Land buying with a view to extensions has been adoptedby a number of municipalities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam,Utrecht and other important towns, and the practice is increasing.Amsterdam has also begun the systematic planning of extensions.There has been a little municipal building in some small places, butit is on an insignificant scale; the tendency is rather to favour societiesof public utility as in France, Germany and Belgium. The new lawsare too recent to have had much effect and housing reform is as yetin an early stage. Rents are high in the large towns, namely, 1room 1s. 8d. to 3s.; 2 rooms 2s. 6d. to 5s.; 3 rooms 3s. 6d. to 6s;4 rooms 4s. 2d. to 7s.

Italy.—A Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed in1903, to promote the improvement and provision of workmen’sdwellings. Municipalities have the power to purchase land compulsorilyfor housing purposes and also to build workmen’s dwellings.A few towns, of which Milan is one, have done so. There are buildingregulations relating to the area and height of rooms and the thicknessof walls. The antiquity of the Italian towns and the great quantityof old and insanitary building make housing improvement a verydifficult matter. La Società Umanitaria, a benevolent trust foundedby Prosper Loria of Milan in 1902, has taken up this subject amongothers and has built two model tenements, housing 2000 persons.

United States.—Interest in the housing question in the UnitedStates is confined to a few of the largest cities and can only be saidto be acute in New York, though there have been investigations bycommissions elsewhere and Miss Octavia Hill’s work in Londonhas found admirers and imitators in Philadelphia and Boston as wellas in New York. The evils of housing in New York have been thesubject of much sensational writing which has elevated them to theposition of a world-wide scandal. It is not necessary to accept allthe allegations made in order to see that several circumstances havecombined to produce an exceptional state of things in this great city.The limited space—the island or peninsula of Manhattan—in whichcentral New York is built has compelled the erection of large tenementblocks, otherwise rare in American towns; the incessant inrushof immigrants from the poorest parts of Europe has filled thesetenements with immense numbers of persons of many nationalitiesaccustomed to a low standard of living; the generally backwardstate of public sanitation in America, and the absence or evasion ofregulations and supervision, have permitted the erection of baddwellings, their deterioration into worse, and their misuse by excessiveovercrowding. Other large cities in which bad housing conditionsare known to exist are Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore,Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Jersey City. There are doubtless manyothers, but bad housing conditions are not so general in the UnitedStates as in Europe. Outside the very large cities there is morespace, more light and air, less crowding together, less darkness, dirtand dilapidation. Large houses, occupied by two or perhaps three ​families, are common, but they have more room space than is usualin Europe. The 18th annual report (1903) of the Commissionerof Labour gives the result of a special inquiry embracing 23,447families distributed in 33 states. The average number of roomswas 4.95 per family and 1.04 per individual. It is a fair inferencethat overcrowding is confined to a comparatively small number ofexceptional places. A large number of the schedules were furnished by the eminently urbanized and manufacturing states of NewYork, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio and Illinois; and in allthese the average number of rooms to a family exceeded 4, rangingfrom 4.2 in Ohio to 5.5 in Massachusetts. The condition of homesas to sanitation and cleanliness was statistically stated thus:Sanitary condition—good 61.46%, fair 32,59%, bad 5.95%;Cleanliness—good 79.63%, fair 14.66 bad 5.71%. Otherspecial inquiries have been carried out in particular towns. In1891–1892 the tenements in Boston were investigated for theMassachusetts Labour Bureau, which found 3657 sleeping roomswithout outside windows and about 8% of the population living inconditions objectionable from one cause or another. In 1892Congress authorized a special inquiry into the slum population ofNew York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the results of whichwere published in the seventh special report (1894) of the UnitedStates Commissioner of Labour. It was estimated that the total“slum population” (presumably those living in unhealthy conditions)was—New York 360,000, Chicago 162,000, Philadelphia35,000, Baltimore 25,000. In Baltimore 530 families, consisting of1648 persons, were living in single rooms with an average of 3.15persons to a room; in Philadelphia 401 families were so living withan average of 3.11 persons to a room. The proportion of 1-roomdwellings was less in New York and Chicago. In New York 44.55%or nearly half the families investigated were found living in2–roomed dwellings, in Baltimore 27.88%, in Philadelphia 19.41%and in Chicago 19.14%. These figures conclusively prove thatEuropean conditions reproduce themselves in American cities.Poverty was not the cause, as the average earnings per familyranged from £3, 4s. a week in Baltimore to £4, 6s. a week in Chicago.Another official investigation in New York was carried out in 1895by the Tenement House Commission appointed by the State of NewYork. It reported “many houses in the city in an insanitary conditionwhich absolutely unfits them for habitation.” Further detailshave been compiled from the census by the New York Federationof Churches, chiefly relating to density of population in the city. In1900, out of a total of nearly 250,000 dwellings, 95,433 (38.2%)contained from 2 to 6 persons, 60,672 (24.2%) from 7 to 10 personsand 89,654 (35.9%) 11 persons or more. The density of populationfor the whole city as now constituted was 19 persons to the acre,in Manhattan 149; in the south-eastern district of Manhattan382 and in one ward 735. Between 1900 and 1905 the densityincreased in every district, and in the latter year there were 12 blockswith from 1000 to 1400 persons to the acre. The number of personsto the acre in London (1901) is 60.6; in the most densely populatedborough 182, and in the most densely populated district (a verysmall one) 396. This will give a measure of comparison. The largetenement blocks in New York have been constructed with far lessregard to health than those in Berlin, and reproduce in an aggravatedform the same evil of insufficient light and air. In place of theinadequate courts round which many are built in Berlin, the NewYork tenements have merely narrow air shafts. In 1904 there werereported to be 362,000 dark interior rooms, that is with no outsidewindows.

If American cities have nothing to learn from other countries inregard to bad housing, they have nothing to teach in the way ofreform. They are following Europe slowly and a long distancebehind. There is no serious attempt to deal with insanitary areasas they have been dealt with in England, or to prevent the creationof new ones by regulation and planning of extensions as in Germany,or to promote the provision of superior houses by organized publiceffort as in several countries. A little has been done in New Yorkto improve the worst housing. A Tenement House Act was passedafter the report of the Commission of 1895 and a Department formedto give effect to it. Some cleansing and repairing and insertion ofwindows is carried out every year, but more attention seems to bepaid to fire escapes. Societies for providing improved dwellingsexist in New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. The oldestis one formed in Boston in 1871, called the Co-operative BuildingCompany; it was followed in 1876 by an Improved DwellingsCompany in Brooklyn, and in 1879 by a similar society in Manhattan,and in 1885 by another in Boston. The largest concern of the kindis the City and Suburban Houses Company in New York, formed in1896 under the guidance of Dr E. R. L. Gould; it has built fourgroups of tenements housing 1238 families in the city and 112 houseson a suburban estate at Brooklyn; in all it has housed some 6000persons. More recently Mr Henry Phipps has given £200,000 forthe provision of model dwellings in New York, and a building hasbeen erected on the plan of the Maison des Enfants in Paris. InChicago the City Houses Association works at housing reforms invarious ways. There are some other institutions of a like kind,but the aggregate results are inconsiderable. Two other buildingagencies have done far more in the United States than philanthropicsocieties; these are the building and loan associations and privateemployers. The former are co-operative provident societies; theyare widely diffused throughout the United States and their operationsare on a very large scale. They date from 1831, when the OxfordProvident Building Association was formed at Frankfort, nearPhiladelphia. Pennsylvania has still the largest number of associations,but from 1843 onwards the movement spread rapidly andcontinuously in other states. The high-water mark appears to havebeen reached in 1897, when the total assets of the associationsamounted to about £133,000,000. In 1905 there were 5326 associationswith an aggregate membership of 1,686,611 and assets ofabout £130,000,000. The states of Pennsylvania and Ohio headthe list, but the movement is very strong in many others. It accountsfor the comparatively large number of houses owned by working-classfamilies in the United States. With regard to housing byemployers, no comprehensive information is available, but the totalamount is certainly considerable though probably not so large asin Germany or in France. Some of the better-known instances arethe Pelzer Manufacturing Company at Pelzer in South Carolina,which has built about 1000 dwellings; the Maryland Steel Companyat Sparrows Point, Maryland, 800 dwellings; Ludlow ManufacturingAssociates at Ludlow, Mass., 500 dwellings; Whitin MachineWorks at Whitinsville, Mass., 600 dwellings; Westinghouse AirBrake Co. at Wilmerding, Penn., 360 dwellings; Draper Co., Hopedale,Mass., 250 dwellings. These are all more or less “model”settlements, not in cities, but in outlying or country places, whereworks have been established, and that is generally true of housingby employers in the United States, whereas in Germany much hasbeen provided by them in the large towns. Rents are very muchhigher in American cities than in European towns of comparablesize and character.

Authorities.—Board of Trade Reports—“Cost of Living of theWorking Classes (England)” (1908); “Cost of Living in GermanTowns” (1908); “Cost of Living in French Towns” (1909). Proceedingsof International Housing Congress (London, 1907); TheNew Encyclopaedia of Social Reform; E. R. Dewsnup, The HousingProblem in England; T. C. Horsfall, The Example of Germany;J. S. Nettlefold, Practical Housing Reform; A. Shadwell, IndustrialEfficiency, ch. xi. on “Housing”; W. Thompson, The HousingHandbook, Housing up to Date.  (A. Sl.)