Second report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the housing of the working classses : Scotland.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Housing of the Working Classes
- Date:
- 1885
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Second report of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the housing of the working classses : Scotland. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![they would be still worse off, being forced to live in the open air, or on the seashore, or to go to the poor houses of the towns; and it would be ruin to the proprietor to compel him to build better houses for them. The Chairman of the Crofters' Commission Napier, considers that migration or emigration only can deal with this serious evil. 2l,2io. The following is a proposal by Lord Napier for remedying some of the evils which Napier, are found especially in connexion with the dwellings of the Highland and Island 21,203, population. Bad dwellings, his Lordship says, can be dealt with by two agencies ; sanitary , agencies for the correction of the worst existing evils, and social or economical agencies ^ for the promotion of better accommodation in future. In order to ascertain how far sanitary agencies can be used for remedial purposes, Lord Napier proposes that a classification of the dwellings of the crofters and cottars should be prepared. Special agents should be employed under the Board of Super- vision to frame a return exhibiting the condition of these dwellings by a specification of the following particulars :—Where the cattle and family are lodged under the same roof without a partition between the two. Where there is a common door for the cattle and the people, with a partition between the two. Where there are separate doors for the cattle and the people. Where there is no window in the upright wall. Where there is one window or more than one in the upright wall. Where there is no fireplace and chimney built in the wall. Where there is one fireplace or more than one in the wall. The number of separate rooms in the dwelling. Where the dwelling is unfit for human habitation. Agents should be guided by some simple instructions governing the return of a dwelling as unfit for human habitation. For instance, all dwellings in which there is no partition between the cattle and the family, and in which there is no window in the upright wal], should be i'pso facto returned as unfit for human habitation. In other cases each case should be determined on its own merits. In all cases in which dwellings are returned as unfit for human habitation, and in which the Occupier pays rent in money, service, or kind to the proprietor or his tenant. Lord Napier considers that the landlord and the occupier should be held summarily responsible for putting the dwelling into a state fit for human occupation to the satisfaction of the local authority, the landlord being charged with all necessary pecuniary outlay and supervision, the occupier being bound to give his unskilled labour or that of a substitute gratuitously. Failing the action of the landlord, his Lordship would make the local authority perform his duty and assess for payment; the co-operation of the occupier to be , enforced for penalties. In this way he considers that all the dwellings of the labouring- people, except those of unauthorised squatters paying no rent, would be rendered fit for human habitation according to a humble local standard of fitness, and he is of opinion that the gradual development of a better order of dwellings and farm offices adapted to the crofter class would be promoted by the adoption of the provisions for the expansion and improvement of townships and holdings, and for the concession of improving leases to individual occupiers embodied in the Report of the Crofters Commission, or by other provisions for the same objects which the Grovernment may devise. Your Majesty's Commissioners feel that they cannot agree with these suggestions, chiefly on the ground that they are inconsistent with remedies for the general condition V of the crofters which seem not unlikely to be proposed to Parliament by Her Majesty's Government, and also that they would be dangerous as setting up a low sanitary standard by imperial authority, and that they would create a kind of forced labour unknown to law. Again, they do not meet the worst cases of the numerous squatters described above who live a wandering life and follow the pursuit of fishing, sometimes living on the main land, sometimes on the islands. The condition of the crofters' and cottars' houses seems to depend on the conditions of their tenure of land, the considera- tion of which is beyond the scope of Your Majesty's Commission, and which is about to be proposed to be dealt with by legislation. Your Majesty's Commissioners therefore abstain from making recommendations on the subject. Your Majesty's Commissioners are, however, of opinion that much good will ensue 1 from an improved system of local government in the extra-urban parts of Scotland. 1 They would urgently recommend the constitution of larger sanitary districts and that I the local authorities should be elected by the ratepayers. They consider that if these administrative reforms were carried out many of the evils in connexion with the dwellings of the labouring classes in the districts in question could not be of long](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24398329_0015.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
