The operation of the former is slow and gradual, but it is continuous and far more general than that of the latter. It embraces many details which are not usually taken into account in discussing housing, but which have as much bearing on the healthiness of the home as the structure itself. The Public Health Acts have further had a certain preventive influence in laying down a standard for the erection of new houses by the ordinary commercial agencies. Such houses are not ideal, because the commercial builder studies economy and the question of rent; but the standard has risen, and building plans involving insufficient light and air, such as once were general, have now for several years been forbidden almost everywhere. Supervision of commercial building is, in fact, vastly more important than the erection of dwellings by public or philanthropic agencies, because it affects a vastly larger proportion of the population. The influence of the Public Health Acts in improving the conditions of home life cannot be estimated or summarized, but it is reflected in the general death-rate, which fell steadily in the United Kingdom from 21.1 per 1000 in 1878 to 15.4 per 1000 in 1907.
Insanitary Areas.—The operation of the Housing Acts is more susceptible of being stated in figures, though no fully comprehensive information is available. The original Shaftesbury Act of 1851 for erecting municipal lodging-houses appears to have been practically inoperative and little or nothing was done for a good many years. In 1864, however, Liverpool obtained a private act and entered on the policy of improvement by the demolition of insanitary dwellings on a considerable scale, following it up in 1869 by re-housing. In 1866 Glasgow, also under a private act, created an Improvement Trust, administered by the city council, and embarked on a large scheme of improvement. These seem to have been the earliest examples. The Torrens Act of 1868, which embodied the improvement policy, did not produce much effect. According to a parliamentary return, during the years 1883–1888, proceedings were only taken under this act in respect of about 2000 houses in London and four provincial towns. More advantage was taken of the Cross Act of 1875, which was intended to promote large improvement schemes. Between 1875 and 1885 23 schemes involving a total area of 51 acres and a population of about 30,000 were undertaken, in London; and 11 schemes in provincial towns. By far the most important of these, and the largest single scheme ever undertaken, was one carried out in Birmingham. It affected an area of 93 acres and involved a net cost of £550,000. Altogether between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 were raised for improvement schemes under those acts. After the Housing Act of 1890 the clearance policy was continued in London and extended in the provinces. During the period 1891–1905 loans to the amount of about £2,300,000 were raised for improvement schemes by 28 provincial towns in England and Wales. The largest of these were Leeds (£923,000), Manchester (£285,000), Liverpool (£178,000), Sheffield (£131,000), Brighton (£112,000). The Leeds scheme affected an area of 75 acres, which was cleared at a cost of £500,000. In London the area cleared was raised to a total of 104 acres; the gross cost, down to March 31, 1908, was £3,417,337, the net cost £2,434,096, and the number of persons displaced 48,525. Glasgow has under its Improvement Trust cleared an area of 88 acres with a population of 51,000. At the same time the policy of dealing with houses unfit for habitation singly or in small groups by compelling owners to improve them has been pursued by a certain number of local authorities. In the six years 1899–1904 action was taken each year on the average in respect of about 5000 houses by some 400 local authorities large and small outside London. Representations were made against 33,746 houses, 17,210 were rendered fit for habitation, closing orders were obtained against 4220 and demolition orders against 748. These figures do not include cases in which action was taken under local acts and Public Health Acts. In Manchester, between 1885 and 1905, nearly 10,000 “back-to-back” houses were closed and about half of them reopened after reconstruction. Hull, an old seaport town with a great deal of extremely bad housing, has made very effective use of the method of gradual improvement and has transformed its worst areas without appearing in any list of improvement schemes. In recent years this procedure has been systematically taken up in Birmingham and other places, and has been strongly advocated by Mr J. S. Nettlefold (Practical Housing) in preference to large improvement schemes on account of the excessive expense involved by the latter in buying up insanitary areas. In the six years 1902–1907 Birmingham dealt with 4111 houses represented as unfit for habitation; 1780 were thoroughly repaired, 1005 were demolished; the rest were under notice or in course of repair at the end of the period. Among other towns which have adopted this policy are Liverpool, Cardiff, York, Warrington and two London boroughs.
Building.—On the constructive side the operation of the Housing Acts has been less extensive and much less general. In London alone has the erection of working-class dwellings by municipal action and organized private enterprise assumed large proportions. Philanthropic societies were first in the field and date from a period anterior to legislation, which however, stimulated their activity for many years by affording facilities. Fourteen organizations were in operation in London prior to 1890 and some of them on a large scale; others have since been formed. The earliest was the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrial Classes, whose operations date from 1847; it has built 1441 tenements containing 5105 rooms. The largest of these enterprises are the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company (1864), which has built 5421 tenements containing 19,945 rooms; the Peabody Fund (1864) with 5469 tenements containing 12,328 rooms; the Artisans’, Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company (1867), with 1467 tenements containing 3495 rooms, and 6195 cottage dwellings; the East-End Dwellings Company (1885) with 2096 tenements containing 4276 rooms; the Guinness Trust (1889) with 2574 tenements containing 5338 rooms. The Artisans’ Dwellings Company alone has housed upwards of 50,000 persons. In addition to these there are the Rowton Houses (1892), which are hotels for working men, six in number, accommodating 5162 persons. So far as can be estimated, private enterprise has housed some 150,000 persons in improved dwellings in London on a commercial basis. The early activity of the building companies was largely due to the policy of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which adopted extensive improvement schemes and sold the cleared sites to the companies, who carried out the re-housing obligations imposed by the law. Since the London County Council, which replaced the Board of Works in 1889, adopted the policy of undertaking its own re-housing, their activity has greatly diminished. The buildings erected by them are nearly all in the form of blocks of tenements; the Artisans’ Dwellings Company, which has built small houses and shops in outlying parts of London, is an exception. The tenement blocks are scattered about London in many quarters. For instance the Peabody Fund has 18 sets of dwellings in different situations, the Metropolitan Association has 14; the Artisans’ Dwellings Company has 10; the Guinness Trust has 8. In 1909 an important addition to the list of philanthropic enterprises in London was put in hand under the will of Mr W. R. Sutton, who left nearly £2,000,000 for the purpose of providing improved working-class dwellings. The erection of tenement blocks containing accommodation for 300 families was begun on a site in the City Road. In only a few provincial towns has private enterprise contributed to improved housing in a similar manner and that not upon a large scale; among them are Newcastle, Leeds, Hull, Salford and Dublin.
Municipal Building has been more generally adopted. The following details are taken from Mr W. Thompson’s Housing up to Date, which gives comprehensive information down to the end of 1906. The number of local authorities which had then availed themselves of part iii. of the Housing Act of 1890, which provides for the erection of working-class dwellings, was 142. They were the London County Council, 12 Metropolitan Boroughs, 69 County Boroughs and Town Councils, 49 Urban District Councils and 12 Rural District Councils. The dwellings erected are classified as lodging-houses, block dwellings, tenement houses, cottage flats and cottages. Lodging-houses have been built by 12 towns, of which 8 are in England, 3 in Scotland (Glasgow, Aberdeen and Leith) and 1 in Ireland (Belfast). The total number of beds provided was 6218, of which Glasgow accounts for 2414, London for 1846, Manchester and Salford together for 648. Four other towns have built or are building municipal lodging-houses for which no details are available. The other municipal dwellings erected are summarized as follows:—
| Kind of Dwelling. | No. of Dwellings. | No. of Rooms. |
| Blocks | 12,165 | 27,523 |
| Tenement Houses | 2,507 | 6,068 |
| Cottage flats | 2,004 | 5,747 |
| Cottages | 3,830 | 17,611 |
| Total | 20,506 | 56,949 |
It appears from these figures that municipal building has provided for a smaller number of persons in the whole of the United Kingdom than private enterprise in London alone. The principal towns which have erected dwellings in blocks are London (7786), Glasgow (2300), Edinburgh (596), Liverpool (501), Dublin (460) and Manchester (420). The great majority of such dwellings contain either two or three rooms. Tenement houses have been built in Liverpool (1424), Manchester (308), Sheffield (192), Aberdeen (128), and in seven other towns on a small scale. Such tenements are generally somewhat larger than those built in blocks; the proportion of three- and four-roomed dwellings is higher and only a small number consist of a single room. Cottage flats have been built in Dublin (528), West Ham (401), Battersea (320), Plymouth (238), East Ham (212), and on a small scale in Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle and seven other places. The majority of the cottage flats contain three or more rooms, a considerable proportion have four rooms. Cottages
