HC Deb 01 May 1907 vol 173 cc978-90
* MR. P. W. WILSON (St. Pancras, S.)

said he desired to call the attention of the House to the question of town development, and to move, "That, in the opinion of this House, local authorities should be granted by legislation the power of laying out suburbs for building on a rational plan, which shall include adequate air space, convenient grounds for recreation, and facilities for locomotion, so preventing the grave evils which result from over-crowding in and around great cities." On 19th April the Prime Minister, in a speech delivered at the Holborn Restaurant, laid it down as the immediate aim of the Government's policy in regard to land and housing that— Happy shall we be if before our day is over we see brightness and colour and pleasant homes for the people, in our cities, and vigorous, well-nourished children playing in the gardens of our cities instead of in the dismal and sunless streets, which are too often the only playground open to them. It was in the spirit of those sincere words that he ventured to submit this Motion to the House. He supposed that there were hundreds of thousands in this country earning their living in the building industry. Lord Rosebery once used the expression— Are you a builder? If so, what, and where, have you built? Every one who had thought over this matter—not merely poets and idealists— agreed that the influence exercised by mere bricks and mortar was not only physical, but moral and intellectual, and assisted to an incalculable extent in the development of human life. Years ago the Borough of Finsbury, once a suburb, was built without a plan and had a population of 101,000 people. It had only two and a half acres of open spaces, Spa Fields one and three-quarter acres, and Spa Green three-quarters of an acre; and in South St. Pancras, which had a population of 60,000, the only open spaces consisted of three disused cemeteries of one and three-quarter acres in extent. The death rate for Hampstead was only half that of Finsbury—a fact which showed the value of open spaces. During the three or four years he had been living in Finsbury they had in the first place been building bigger schools, in the second place they had been building bigger public-houses, and in the third place they had been building a very much larger police station. His constituency of South St. Pancras was divided between the comfortably rich and the extremely poor, and, as he had said, they had 60,000 inhabitants and their open spaces consisted of three disused burial grounds, of which only two had been consecrated, the third being Nonconformist. What was the effect upon the race of the present state of things? Let them take Mafeking night, when there were millions in the streets cut off from the steadying influences of nature, breathing an artificial atmosphere and displaying a temperament that was hysterical, restless, and undisciplined. It was made the occasion of civic rejoicing, but what about the hunger and discontent which existed? The manning of cities and distribution of population involved not humanity merely, but national security. He did not want, however, to dwell upon the errors of the past, errors of ignorance, errors of apathy and errors of avarice; what he wished to point out was that the evil was continuing and spreading all over the country. They would find in the suburbs and in provincial cities like Middlesbrough large masses of houses built back to back in a, uniform line, without any allowance in regard to air space, and embodying everything that was low and bad in its influence upon human life. What was the remedy for this impudent denial of aesthetic instinct? His hon. friend the Member for Cheshire had built one of the most wonderful garden cities in the country, and his hon. friend regarded this not as a question of philanthropic effort but as a matter of business, since human life was the raw material upon which all national prosperity must rest. What he wanted to bring to the attention of the House was the indispensable minimum which they ought to secure. He did not talk of luxuries, libraries, public halls, clubs, and swimming baths, but he contended that there should be gardens in the suburbs three or four times the size of the site of the house. Each road should have a width of not less than 100 feet; his right hon. friend the President of the Local Government Board know how difficult it was to widen streets after the houses had been erected. These things were possible, not merely in villages, but in towns. There should also be a given number of houses to the acre, accessible playgrounds, and the preservation of those rural features which went so far to humanise life. He supported the principle of garden cities as having a most beneficial effect upon human life. At Port Sunlight the inhabitants had a prospect of 110 years of life, and in another garden city there was the prospect of an average life of 140 years as against twenty-five in Finsbury. In these places the birth rate was 40 as against 27.9 in London. He brought these figures to the attention of the Government because he thought they had important bearing upon the question of old ago pensions. There was a most interesting experiment going forward in London at the present moment. He referred to the Hampstead Garden Suburb, in which he understood the lion. Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, was interested. That was an experiment conducted upon 240 acres of land, taken over from the Eton College trustees, and the scheme had the powerful support of Sir John Gorst, Earl Grey, the Earl of Crewe, the Bishop of London, Sir Robert Hunter, Mr. Lyttelton, and others, who were endeavouring to bring poor and rich together on the outskirts of London, and the point ho had in his mind in this regard was not that they had so much inequality between rich and poor, but that they lived apart. They thought that the time had come when the matter should no longer be left to private enterprise; they wanted municipal action, and he hoped they were to have a discussion later on on the question of land valuation. What was wanted was the principle of co-operation between the city and surrounding authorities. A most remarkable report had been issued by the Housing Committee of Birmingham, drawn up by Mr. Nettlefold, the chairman. That committee investigated the state of affairs in Germany and found that so long ago as 1875 there was legislation upon the lines suggested by the Motion. Nothing could be done towards settling the question until Parliament assented to legislation on general lines to prevent the building of unsuitable suburbs. In listening to hon. Members opposite he had been amazed by the description of the demands made by the working classes. What was it that the working classes asked for? They did not ask for luxuries, motor-ears, traps, or unlimited space, but merely for the bare amenities of life; some security for employment and for food, shelter, fresh air, and a bit of garden. These were the questions they were discussing on May-day. Ono hundred years ago May-day was day of holiday and general rejoicing; to-day it was an occasion for labour agitation throughout Europe. That was his first observation. His second was that if they road history they would find that every empire had been judged by reference to its cities; that in the case of every empire there came a time of material abundance, when the activity of the race ran greatly ahead. That moment had come to us. We were building at an enormous pace all over the country, but we must remember that in doing so we were not merely building houses and streets out of which to get rents and rates; we were actually building the future of our race, and the supreme destiny of our Colonies and dominions beyond the seas. He begged to move.

* MR. JOWETT (Bradford, W.)

said he seconded the Resolution because he thought it was a Motion which the House ought to discuss considering the immense population that lived in towns. He understood that 77 per cent, of the population of this country inhabited towns, and that being so, it followed that the condition of the towns was bound to have a great influence on ho future of our race. The towns of to-day had boon built without any pre conceived plan and were the result of the more monetary interest of various individuals. As a result there were no playgrounds to speak of in which the children could play; they had to play over the gutters, or in the backyards near the foul privies and middens with flies constantly passing between them and the pile of refuse so near at hand. There were thousands of places in towns where direct sunlight came for only a very short time each day. This was chaos, and the Resolution asked for an expression of opinion from the House that that chaos should come to an end, and that so far at any rate as future extensions were concerned, matters should be thought out before hand, and should be planned in such a way as would lead to healthy, vigorous life for the population which was now living, and was young enough to be influenced by the new conditions. The towns now were under serious disabilities in dealing with outside areas owing to the fact that other authorities were frequently responsible, and had to he consulted before an arrangement could be made. If the Resolution were passed, he would take it to include an expression of opinion that the outskirts of the towns, even though they were not under the authority of the town chiefly concerned, should also be subject to the plans of the same order, even if the central authority had to compel the subsidary authorities to conform to what was best. At the present time, the land of outside areas was owned by many different owners, and where there was separate ownership there was bound to be large and small plots, and it was impossible for these plots to be dealt with in such a way as to allow the most suitable class of building to be erected. All that was determined by the size and position of the plot. It often happened that one man found it impossible to build in a sensible and intelligent manner because his neighbour had built in such a way as to preclude any possibility of his doing so. Then, again, in some cases the owner of a piece of land found it impossible to utilise it to the best advantage because of the erection in close proximity of some premises for an offensive trade. Houses in the neighbourhood of the factory carrying on the offensive trade were deteriorated, and they had districts in which such factories were surrounded by houses to the great detriment of all concerned. The Resolution sought to put an end to that—if legislation followed, as they hoped it would—by imposing on the local authority the duty of making a plan which would bind these separate owners to follow some systematic method in dealing with their lands. In his own experience he had seen cases where owners of very small pieces of land had actually blocked the development of larger pieces by securing the outlet for drainage purposes. He had seen instances where speculators had bought land at a particular point, not for the purpose of using it, but for the purpose of preventing somebody else from having the opportunity of making use of their land, in the expectation that they would be bought out at a. price which would leave them a large profit on the transaction. The Resolution was aimed at the destruction of action of that kind. To act upon the Resolution properly, it appeared to him that it would be necessary to expropriate the landlords or owners of the property which conflicted with the general interest. He did not use the word expropriate in the sense of confiscate; the owners ought to be dealt with on fair terms. He could quite understand how cases might arise where the owners might be perfectly innocent of any intention to injure the public welfare, and naturally, if such cases were dealt with, it should be on fair terms, and nobody on these Benches would wish otherwise, for they were not so unreasonable as might be sometimes supposed. They were not in the habit of going in for confiscation; they desired to do justice to all. But where property was in such a position that other property could not be properly dealt with if it were allowed to remain, or where it was in a dilapidated condition, then Parliamentary powers ought to be given to the local authority to allow them to remove the property which was of an obstructive character, or which injured other adjacent property, and to charge the adjacent owners for any benefit which they derived from its removal. As a patriotic Britisher he was sorry to have to admit that we were behindhand in these matters in comparison with other countries. In Germany this subject had already received the most careful attention from the very best men in the country, and for years they had been working on the lines indicated in the Resolution. He found from a publication issued by the Manchester and Salford Citizens' Association, that the town authorities in Germany, when large extensions were contemplated, went about their work in a most careful fashion. They took skilled advice in every direction, including not only engineers and surveyors and others, but even artists, in order that the work which they were about to execute might be beautiful as well as useful and beneficial. The reports prepared by the experts referred to were afterwards published and the public were asked to give their opinion. Ho mentioned that to show the immense pains taken in order that the work might be done properly. It was recognised in Germany that plans made for the development of land, and for the provision of sites for houses and buildings, should be so drawn as to cover if possible the needs of the next twenty or thirty years. Streets were arranged, open spaces were thoughtof, the general lie of the situation was properly discussed, and everything that they could think of for the public health was attended to, before any construction took place, He felt sure that the President of the Local Government Board, who was an old municipal administrator, would agree with him when he said that in Germany the State had encouraged; localities to progress in this direction The State had gone to the length of issuing general instructions calling upon local authorities to miss no opportunity of getting suitable land into their possession wherever they could. In this country, in times past, the efforts of local authorities in this direction had been throttled by the State. The Local Government Board, instead of saying "Buy where you can if the price is reasonable," had encouraged local authorities to sell land, and scores of public bodies had sacrificed thousands of pounds through being compelled to sell sites fronting public thoroughfares before they had developed, with the result that private speculators had reaped the benefit. He asked the House to give a sympathetic consideration to the Resolution. He thought hon. Members were agreed that legislation should follow, and he appealed to the President of the Local Government Board to grant the powers to local authorities which were indicated in the Resolution, which he begged leave to second.

Motion made and Question proposed—"That, in the opinion of this House, local authorities should be granted by j legislation the power of laying out suburbs for building upon a rational plan, which shall include adequate air space, convenient grounds for recreation, and facilities for locomotion, so preventing the grave evils which result from overcrowding in and around great cities."—(Mr. P. W. Wilson.)

VISCOUNT TURNOUR (Sussex, Horsham)

said there could be no more useful work for that House to do than to endeavour to prevent the evils of overcrowding, and to that extent he was in favour of the Resolution. No one would deny that there was in London a great absence of open air spaces and opportunities for recreation. It was also true that in the past due regard had not been paid to the way in which the rural population of the country had been decreasing. He did not agree that the conditions of things in this respect were much worse—especially in London—than in other countries. Ho had travelled a good deal, and he did not admit that the conditions in this country were worse. He very much deprecated the way in which the mover of the Resolution had blackened the character of London in this respect. The hon. Member had drawn a most dismal picture of Finsbury, for he had stated that they began in Finsbury with education, proceeded with intemperance, and ended with crime. He ventured to say that that was a somewhat dark picture, and it was hardly likely to be a correct one. The problem to be faced was that of overcrowding, and proper facilities ought to be provided in large towns for recreation. If the Motion had proposed more stringent legislation to prevent new suburbs being constructed on the old fashioned plan without sufficient open air spaces he would have been able to support it, but ho could not support any Resolution which proposed to allow local authorities to lay out suburbs in the way the hon. Member proposed.

* THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN BURNS,) Battersea

The subject-matter of this Resolution has evoked universal discussion during the last few years, and has aroused considerable interest amongst housing, social, and civic reformers. I venture to say that it would have been a great advantage to the House of Commons if time had permitted us to discuss at greater length the vital and interesting subject which is embodied in this Resolution. In the short space of time of ten minutes I have to reply to this Motion, and in so doing, may I say, that as a Londoner, as a cockney born and bred, I cannot accept the grey, dismal, melancholy impression of London given by the hon. Member for South St. Pancras. If the hon. Member's description is accepted London might be described as a place for work housing the old, warehousing the women and children, and public-housing the men. May I say that that is an ox-aggerated view of what London is? I know of no city in the world which, for its size, is as sober, and for its condition s loss criminal; and speaking with almost a unique experience as a Main Drainage Commissioner for eighteen years, I can say that I know no city so healthy, so clean, so much possessed of the crude essentials of good sanitation and physical decency as the great city in which this Parliament sits.

MR. P. W. WILSON

was understood to say that what he intended to state was in the immediate neighbourhood of which he had personal knowledge the number, of public-houses and convictions for t drunkenness had greatly increased, and ' it had less open spaces than other metropolitan boroughs.

* MR. JOHN BURNS

All I can say is that in that respect the hon Member's constituency differs from mine, which has nearly the smallest number of public houses of any parish, has 18 per cent, of open space in its total area, and on Easter Monday last, when 200,000 persons went in and out, there were only four cases at the local police station and throe of them were strangers to the neighbourhood. But although I cannot accept the view of the hon. Member who moved this Motion as to the condition of London, I admit that the conditions under which large numbers of our people live are not as good as they ought to be, and not so good as they must be. It is as well that we should rocognise the fact that in the last ten years there has been an extraordinary improvement in desire, in taste, and in appetite on the part of the people themselves for better conditions in the matter of housing. I venture to say that there is no other country in the world where there are so many comfortable homes. There is no country in which domestic architecture has developed further than in this city. I decline to accept oven the pessimism of the hon. Member for North West Ham. But these amenities are possessed too exclusively by a small class. Their ideals are rapidly extending down to the poorest people whom we have in all our cities, and in so far as this Motion will enable us to assist the desire for better accommodation, then the Government will support it in the strongest possible May. May I say that there is hardly anything in the Resolution that local authorities are not now; able to do, except one particular. Let me prove it. Let us go to Bourneville, the greatest triumph of housing and social experiment there is in the world. What has been done there, both as regards the amenities of the houses and the environments, is the best thing that has yet been done: but it must be remembered that what has there been done is in excess and advance of local by-laws. The same can be said of Port Sunlight, Garden City and Hampstead. I would take you to another type of illustration, namely, Chelsea. There you can see what one man cooperating with the local authority has been able to do in road and architectural improvement, and that mainly because he is one man acting in co-operation with the local authority, and, if I may say so, peacefully persuading the local authority to conform to his views. There you have seen a portion of London revolutionised in the direction this Resolution seeks to have developed everywhere throughout the country under the existing laws. But the difficulty comes in where you have a large area of land cut up by conflicting and divided interests, each exploiting his own portion and manipulating the property irrespective of the locality. There you see the very opposite of what has been revealed at Bourneville, Garden City, Millbank, Holborn, Chelsea and elsewhere. It is the business of these responsible for town government to see that local authorities who are willing shall have the means by which they can co-operate with private owners who are willing to bring about by their co-operation that which can be done by the individual where ho is all powerful, or whore he acts in conjunction with the local authority. We have got to devise some means of dealing with the recalcitrant and outstanding individual who believes in the mean street, the moaner house, the cheap and nasty tenement, and dear rents, who is for universal advertisement, and for the sordid and squalid conditions which we too often see our suburbs literally cursed with, because there is lack of community of action for the improvement of the district. I believe that the legacy of ugly buildings, mean streets, and brick boxes with slate lids, cannot be altered or removed until Parliament enable the local authorities to bring these interests together, and, failing agreement, to submit the issue to arbitration, and failing agreement and arbitration, to apply compulsion. I may tell the mover of this Resolution what has been done in order to carry out what is practical, sensible, and immediately pressing in the Resolution. We have, in accordance with a promise given to a town planning deputation which waited on the Prime Minister and myself six months ago, anticipated the Resolution moved by the hon. Member. I have before me two alternative Bills which are in process of drafting, by means of which we hope to achieve the important object referred to in the Resolution. The lines on which we would prefer to move would be that we should make provision in any scheme with respect to the manner in which streets and roads are to be laid down on the land; the parts of the land to be appropriated for open spaces or public purposes; the position in which houses may be built upon the land; the general character of the houses to be built; the conditions to be observed with the view to drainage or supply of water or light; and any other conditions which it may be considered desirable to impose with the view of making the best use of the area for building land, having regard to the circumstances of the case, and securing these and many other objects. Time does not permit me further to define or explain on behalf of the Government the plan which I have outlined. We freely and cheerfully accept this Resolution, and so soon as is practicable for us we shall plate our proposals more fully before the House. It may be possible to bring in a separate town planning Bill which would meet with universal acceptance from all sections of the House for this desirable object. We intend to go forward with that town planning Bill, and when its objects are realised we hope we will be able to say — We builded better than we knew, The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House, local authorities should be granted; by legislation the power of laying out suburbs for building upon a rational plan, which shall include adequate air-space, convenient grounds for recreation, and facilities for locomotion, so preventing the grave evils which result from overcrowding in and around great cities. —(Mr. P. W. Wilson.)

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