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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![9 feot by 7 ft. 6 in. high. They have no bed ; they have no table and no utensils ; and they are in an abject state of poverty and dirt. New E,oss is a small town in the province of Leinster, which has the melancholy New Ross, distinction of having the highest average death-rate in the United Kingdom, the average for the last 10 years being 31 per 1,000. Three fourths of the houses of the Meehan, labourers have no sanitary arrangements whatever, and some respectable houses, to 24,392. quote the expression of the medical officer, have none either. The water supply is very Burke, deficient and of an inferior quality, the sewage filtering into the pipes. The houses 24,427. are generally overcrowded and badly ventilated, and though the tenement houses are in a deplorable condition no attempt has been made to enforce regulations imder section 100 of the Public Health Act. There are therefore sufficient reasons for the excessive death-rate. The general efiect of the evidence given before Your Majesty's Commission points Grimshaw, to several facts : that the poverty of the labouring classes in most of the towns of 23,176. Ireland is extreme; that nothing could be more miserable than the condition of many 23*207^ of their dwellings and surroundings in the towns; that notwithstanding the adverse './^ influences of their existence their standard of morality is very high; and that the Spencer, existing evils of administration are not due to defects in but to the failure of the 22,890. existing authorities in acting upon legislation, which has invested them with ample powers. The last sentence may be said to cover the whole of the question before Your Majesty's Commissioners as regards Ireland. The same was pointed out in their Report on the other portions of the United Kingdom, but neither in England and Wales, or m Scotland, is the complaint so universal of the default of the local authorities when legislation has put most efiective remedies in their hands. The poverty of many of the Irish towns, however, accounts to a very large extent for the failure of their authorities. RECOMMENDATIONS. One or two points may first be mentioned, on which evidence was given, to show that the law might with advantage be amended. The witnesses from Dublin gave strong evidence as to the necessity for the extension Dublin— of the boundaries of the city. Dublin is now hemmed in by a number of independent Extension townships. Into these the wealthier classes are constantly migrating, while the poorer p^j^s classes are moving into the city. Thus, instead of the working classes living outside Cotton' the town proper, and coming in to their work, in Dublin they live in the city and 21,972', &c. go out to their work. All the expenses which arise in connexion with them and Conlan, their dwellings, the maintenance of the hospitals, &c., is borne by the city, and no 23,287, contribution is made to it hy the townships. A Royal Commission investigated this Beveridge, subject in 1878, and reported strongly in favour of the extension of the boundaries. 22,369. The corporation state that they have frequently appealed to the executive to carry out this recommendation. They have no power themselves to take any action. The English towns have power to promote Bills. The Irish corporations have no ■ power to promote Bills save for works. The evil is described by the witnesses Beveridge, as] growing daily worse as the process of the exodus of the wealthier classes goes on, 22,377. and the consequent burden of taxation on those who remain increases. The town clerk gp^ncer stated that some districts of the city would be quite unable to bear the burden of the 22,882.' present taxation. Were it not that other districts being still wealthy, and, sharing it, Beveridge, made it bearable by all. 22,374, &c. Your Majesty's Commissioners are of opinion that the recommendations of the Royal Commission referred to should be carried out. The question of compensation awarded for the demolition of houses required for the Amend- purposes of improvement was fully gone into in the English inquiry. The Irish ^aw^ '^^ evidence shows that the sums awarded for houses in condemned areas have frequently been excessive, and that many schemes have been thereby prevented from being Pim, 22,644. carried out. There has, however, been no experience in Ireland of the working of the latest Artizans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act. The witnesses ex- Harty, amined on this subject generally agree that an official arbitrator would be preferable 22,276. to- a professional valuer in such cases; and also that the appeal to a jury should be ||g22^*' abolished, and in both of these recommendations Your Majesty's Commissioners agree, Di'non as may be gathered from their Report upon England and Wales. 23,o8i. • A great deal of unoccupied ground, upon most of which houses once stood, still g ^, exists in Dublin and in other Irish towns. There is no power compulsorily to take 22,926.' vacant ground under the Artizans Dwellings Act, and such a power would be especially advantageous to Irish towns. The attention of Your Majesty's Commissioners was drawn to a point of law which seems to require amendment. This relates to the difference in law between proceed- B 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24398329_0029.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
