Our village homes : present conditions & suggested remedies / by Hugh Aronson ; preface by Henry Bentinck.

  • Aronson, Hugh.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Our village homes : present conditions & suggested remedies / by Hugh Aronson ; preface by Henry Bentinck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The problem of Rural Housing is one to which it is necessary that we should give immediate attention. While governments are legislating for the clamorous urban voter, the less articulate countryman has hither- to been neglected. Now when the question is recog- nised as national, it is very necessary to approach it with knowledge and to avoid the common error that the Housing Problem is merely a question of wages. Early in the Nineteenth Century the agricultural labourer lost most of his valuable common rights, and with them went all hope of an independent existence. In all the years that have passed since then, he has had little incentive to remain on the land. None of the palliatives that have from time to time lightened his load, have prevented his emigration to the town or the colonies. To-day his urgent need is a secure home where he can live and rear his children in de- cency. This is just what, under present conditions, he cannot have. The cry from our villages is always the same—insufficient cottages and bad accommoda- tion. The present Plousing Acts are a step in the right direction. They would indeed be not inade- quate had they a real driving power behind them. Housing Commissioners furnished with a grant from the Treasury to assist and encourage Local Authori- ties would provide such a power. A vigorous policy of closing insanitary cottages and replacing them by