CORRESPONDENCE SECTION

SHOCKING CONDITIONS IN SCOTLAND

[ON February 11th, during a debate on Housing, in which the Socialists attacked the Government policy of encouraging Weir steel houses, Mr. Rosslyn Mitchell, the Socialist member for Paisley, delivered this remarkable speech, which we devoutly hope will not be lost on all whom it may concern-including the Conservative Party.]

Mr. ROSSLYN MITCHELL: I hope that in the particular circumstances the Committee will allow me to say in my first sentence that I have never had at any time, and have not now, any association, either financial, professional, or social, with Lord Weir, or the Atholl Housing Company, or the Cowieson Company, or any association or society with which they are connected. I stand to-night and speak from these benches as a quite unrepentant supporter of the proposal that the Government have put before the House.

I would like to draw the attention of the House to the real basic fact that lies underneath this proposition. There are in Scotland 4,886,000 people. Of that number, there are 400,000 who live now in single-room houses. I do not mean by that houses which are occupied in single apartments; I mean houses which are self-contained single rooms. There are 1,950,000 people in Scotland living in two-apartment houses. That means that there are 2,350,000 people more than one-half the population of Scotland-who have never known what it is to have a home of three apartments, who have never known what it is to live in a home with hot water supply, who have never known what it is to live in a home with a bath, and who have never known what it is to live in a house with lavatory privilege. There is the substantial human position.

Many of us on this side of the House know what life is in these conditions. We do not live in these conditions to-day. Many of us have seen the moment arrive when by some fortune, which we either merited or not, we have been able to leave these conditions, and we have felt ourselves, and all associated with us have felt themselves, filled with a thrill of hope at the prospect of the new quality of life which was to be the result of a three-roomed house, of a bath, continuous hot water, and lavatory privileges within the house. In Glasgow, out of 1,000,000 population, 600,000 people live in two-apartment or singleapartment houses. Here is great Glasgow, the pioneer of municipal enterprise, and yet in 1925 there were 600,000 of its people living under these dreadful conditions! Moreover-I still ask the Committee to give its attention to Glasgow-there are 13,600 houses in Glasgow inhabited by families of British citizens, that have been condemned as unfit for human habitation, not by the standard of 1925, but by the lowest standard imposed by the terms of reasonable health being enjoyed by the people.

In these houses to-day there are women and children living. This is not a man's problem. The man leaves the house in the morning, and he is out all day. He comes home to his evening meal, and he goes out again. The woman lives in the house two-thirds of her time. The children are in the house onehalf of the time. Children sleep in the house, and the sleep of a child is the base rock upon which it is going to build up its nerve and sinew, its blood, and the marrow in its bones. There can be no sleep under such conditions. There can only be slow asphyxiation. Here is a grim tragedy, when 13,600 of these

houses are condemned as unfit for human habitation, and there are hundreds of people who are even begging for the opportunity to get into any one of them.

There are people living below the ground. There are people living in houses which they have to reach by mounting outside ladders, like a painter. There are people living in outhouses, people living in houses that are infested with rats, and they have to protect their children during sleep from rats. There are houses which I have seen in which the little children dare not lie down on the floor; they have to sleep leaning against the wall, because of the vermin which are there. That is the problem.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Hear, hear!

Mr. MITCHELL: There are hundreds who have not even shelter, and who have to go to the parks to sleep on banks, or who have to go into the prison cells night after night, or have to go to the railway sidings to sleep, not on the seats, lest they should be arrested, but under the seats, so that they may not be observed. There are people who rig up little trumpery jute bag tents for a covering for their heads. That is the problem. That is the tragedy. What is the use of talking about the Empire upon which the sun never sets, when you have in the very heart and bosom of that Empire houses on which the sun never rises-airless, sunless, lightless homes for British citizens? Not only have we the absolutely homeless person, but we have the slum-dweller. When we come to the 1927 standard house, it is an artisan problem, and yet we have the artisans of Glasgow, those highly skilled engineers, the product of whose skill and industry excites the admiration and envy of the world, having to live in these two-apartment, or single-apartment houses. We need now, not two years hence, 120,000 houses to maintain even that standard. We need, if we take the new standard of 1925, 250,000 houses now. We cannot wait for bricklayers, plasterers, and joiners to adjust their differences. There are old folk living in these houses, and they cannot wait. There are young people who are married or who are about to be married who have no home. They cannot wait. There are little children passing through the most impressionable stage of their lives, between the ages of one and seven, and they cannot wait.

I

The whole honour and chivalry of the British race cannot wait. We must have 20,000 houses every year for fifteen years. I wish the Prime Minister, instead of speaking about 2,000 houses and £200,000, had spoken about two million houses, or £2,000,000. But I believe that this is just the first move. believe that his heart is bigger than the figures represent. I rejoice as a lifelong opponent of the traditions of the party opposite to see that they have allowed their hearts and their minds to be affected by the sorrows and anguish of their fellow-citizens.

Now we come to the problem and the efforts made to solve it. What has been done? In six years in Scotland we have managed, with the help of the Treasury, the local authorities, the masters, and the builders, to produce 36,000 houses. We are, therefore, 84,000 worse off now than we were five years ago, judged by the standard that I set before you. We have lost 14,000 houses. The labour is represented in Scotland by 69,000 operatives, 63,000 of whom are engaged upon buildings for banks and theatres and cinemas and stone houses and other edifices. Only 6,000 out of 69,000 are the operatives who to-day are protesting against any member of their party daring to say a word. Out of 69,000 only 6,000. The 63,000 have no interest in this proposition. They have not been working on the job. They have been working at their own job, a job which needs them still, and will need them for many years.

Materials? Every time a proposition is put before this House to increase building by existing and customary materials, the price goes up. It is £100 higher to-day for a house than it was two years ago. When the Coalition Government made a proposition the price went up twice, and the Minister of Health

had to sacrifice, not only his proposals, but himself. When the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Minister of Health held office in a former Conservative Government, he had to face the prospect of adding another £70 to the price of a house. The Minister of Health of the late Labour Government made a proposition in order to give an extra £9 a year, and it was all consumed in the interest upon the extra cost of building material. And here we are land-locked -labour, material, money. The local authorities cannot face, single-handed, these great housing schemes; they must have national support. It has been the policy of those who sit on the Labour Benches, as far as I have been able to understand it, to promote and propagate the idea that this was a national proposition which should be helped by national funds. Now it is offered to us, and I am very sorry that it should receive such a chilly reception.

There is the question of time. It takes years to build houses on ordinary lines with ordinary materials and by ordinary craft labour. The hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. Kirkwood) knows that in his own constituency there are houses which have stood partly finished for over two years. I know areas, built up to a certain extent, that are losing thousands of pounds in interest and are not completed yet, and we do not know when they will be completed. They cannot be completed in time to meet this terrible need, and to restore those who are at present suffering so terribly. But if it is possible to conceive a scheme whereby a house, internally as good and externally adequate, can be made without trespassing on building material and building operatives, then you can fulfil the needs of the people for homes, and you can solve partially another distressing problem which faces men of high skill, who have been accustomed to work all their lives but are now spending year after year walking the streets, and are forbidden to apply their skill in this connection.

That has been done in three cases at least. I know of others, but I confine myself to the three that are before this House-the Weir scheme, the Atholl scheme, and the Cowieson scheme. These schemes are totally different in idea. The Atholl scheme provides an iron and steel framework and steel walls, and then calls upon the building contractor to supply building craftsmen, the joiner and plumber and all the rest, to perform their craft work on the site. There is no standardization outside the frame. The Weir house idea is to employ the operative, the building craftsman, at his craft, not on the site where he is liable to the fluctuations of weather, but to employ him in a factory of his own, under his own trade union conditions and under his own employers, where he would have continuous employment to produce the finished article of his craft, and make it the raw material of the housing contractor. That is a totally different conception.

I hope that this Debate will have at least one effect. I hope that it will have removed from the minds of the women of Scotland the unmitigated mischief which has been caused by the reckless condemnation of this type of house as a house. To talk, as has been done, of this type of house as a dirty, insanitary, verminous, tin shanty and sardine tin, for it to be spoken of by men who have come from single ends as an insult to the poor-men who have tried to create in the minds of the women the idea that to live in one of these houses is to ostracize themselves socially from their fellows-that sort of talk has done irreparable injury. Whatever may be the consequence on the question of a trade union conflict, with which I am not here concerned, I hope that at least this Debate will have removed the pernicious influence that has been working all through Scotland during the past twelve months.

I would like to refer in the greatest friendship to words that were used by the honoured leader of my party. He begged that at least his village should be kept clear of modern methods of building. I happen to be interested in that village too, and for years I have admired it because it was one of the first villages

in Scotland to adopt the pioneer method of building houses with concrete blocks. What is this modern method? I will not say what it is myself, but will ask right hon. and hon. Gentlemen to read the Moir Report, which is signed by building trade employers and building trade operatives' representatives, under the ægis of a Socialist Minister of Health. Hon. Members will find that that Report analyses, and boasts that it analyses, the question from a technical point of view. It says that there is nothing peculiarly novel in the idea. The idea has been carried out for years with success. It analyses every criticism, such, for instance, as the statement that the house is hot in summer and too cold in winter, or that it is insanitary or verminous. And in every case it decided in favour of the house.

But hon. Members need not take only that Report. They can ask the town clerks of the local authorities which have put up the houses. What did they find as the result? Do not let our prejudice or our conservatism shut our eyes entirely to facts. Go to the Town Clerk of Stranraer or the Town Clerk of Newton Stewart, or the County Clerk of Lanarkshire, or any of those who have put up these houses. Ask them, first, what is their view; second, what is the view of their tenants; and you will receive, as I could read it to the House to-night, a unanimous and enthusiastic report on behalf of the officials and the tenants in favour of these houses. Moreover, what was the decision of the Ministry of Health when it was occupied by a Socialist Minister and Scotland was administered by a Socialist Under-Secretary? Did they not propose to the county of Lanark the erection of these houses? I have the Official Report here, if my hon. Frienu shakes his head. He may have forgotten.

In August 1924 a Socialist Government was in power, or in office. If there be anything at all that makes me nervous of my position or at all uncertain, it is the fact that hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House are so enthusiastic in their support of my statements. In August 1924 the Minister of Health and the Under-Secretary for Scotland did propose that these houses should be erected. There was no protest. An order was given for the erection. There was no protest until the order was about to be executed. Then there came this: In Leeds and Manchester and Sheffield and Plymouth, and in Lanark, the local authorities were met by the following threat, "If you dare to put up, even for demonstration purposes, a house built in the Weir factory, under the Weir conditions, we will "-I ask Trade Unionists to mark this-" draw off from the whole of your local authority area every man engaged in the building of houses, public or private." That was a terrible threat. Is it any wonder that the local authorities, faced with such a position, and not having tested the house, and having only been asked to put up demonstration houses, said, "We cannot proceed with this arrangement"? So there are not many being built.

I will say a few words on the conditions. I have examined them personally with an absolutely unrestricted laissez-passer to go through the whole of the houses and to speak in confidence to any men, and I will tell this House the result, because there has been so much innocent misunderstanding and so much innocent misrepresentation about this matter that we must face the facts. Mr. BUCHANAN: Now you are sneering.

Mr. R. MITCHELL: One sometimes finds on occasions like this on what a flimsy basis friendship is built. May I ask the House to allow me to tell them that I am interested in the quality of life of the people who make these houses, I am interested in the quality of life of the people who assemble them, and I am interested in the quality of life of the people who live in them. I will tell you what the men themselves said to me personally :

This work is much less hard than my own job, which is that of a fitter. The pay is nearly double. I make £1 a day without any strain, and on Friday-that was the day before I spoke to him-I made 22s.

Another fitter said:

It is far easier than fitting, much cleaner and nicer. There is no fatigue, and I make 18s. to £1 a day.

A ship-fitter said:

It is very light work compared with the work in the yard. All the lifting is done by the crane.

He used to make £3 a week, and now makes £4 9s. with less exertion. Two others say that it is the best job they ever had. One was indignant at being called a blackleg. Three labourers said it was a fine job, never less than £3 a week, no broken time, and one of them told me he knew a thousand men who would jump at the chance. An erector on the site erecting fireplaces said he could erect one and a quarter of those a week at £4 15s. ; he never had less than £6; it was a cushy job. When I said, "What do you think of the house?" he said, “I wish to God I had one." There was an order given for joiners' craft workmanship in doors and surrounds. It was given to a Glasgow firm who wanted work for their joiners under joiners' trade union conditions. The operatives of the federation which is so antagonistic said, "If you make those doors, we will withdraw every man from your works." The result was that the proprietor of the business had to ask that the order be cancelled. Judged from the trade union standard, what happened? The Glasgow joiners lost an excellent job to express in doors and surrounds their craftsmanship to a minute part of an inch. The doors had to be got from somewhere, and so they were got from Canada, quite good doors, not because they wanted Canadian doors, but because the British joiners were not allowed to make the doors for these houses. I know my friends do not like this, I do not like it, but I am going to state it. I maintain that these houses-and I am backed by hundreds of women in my constituency who have personally inspected them-are beautiful houses, immeasurably superior to the houses at present occupied by the skilled artisans of Glasgow and Paisley.

I maintain that in appearance and internal arrangements they are a great advance on anything that we have had in the line of artisan houses in Glasgow. I maintain that they are better than many of the brick houses put up during the past few years. I maintain that the men employed in making the raw material which is their finished product are employed entirely under trade union conditions. I maintain that the assembling of these things in the shop is a new industry which bears no relationship to the building industry, which requires no building crafts. The question as to what union may eventually have to decide the terms is one which has to be decided when the factory starts going; not now.

I maintain that the protests that are made against these houses and against the Government's scheme do not represent the views of the people of Scotland. I maintain, further, that at this moment the people of Scotland are trembling with expectancy, not simply as to whether these houses are to be built or not, but whether they are to be the lucky ones who are going to get them. I believe there are men and women in Scotland to-night who are praying to God that their children may be among the lucky ones. If I support the Government on this occasion, it does not mean that I accept any other principle of the other side of the House. It means-I do not know what it may mean. It may mean that if we are not one in faith and doctrine we may be one in charity. It may mean nothing; it may mean much; but if I retarded by one day the hopes and dreams of men and women who are seeing their children grow up as I see them and seeing their bodies and minds developing as I see them, it would be better that a millstone were hung round my neck and I was cast into the depths of

the sea.