Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/34

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22
SATISFACTORY HOUSES FOR WORKING CLASSES

by the possession of this garden, which acted as a buffer between the family and destitution. Probably there are at least half a million casual workers in this country. They never know from week to week, sometimes from day to day, whether they will have anything to do; and as a man grows older, his chances of getting work from the casual labour market decrease. Now, if he is simply seeking work for wages, it is all or nothing; he is employed or he is not. He may be 95 per cent. as good as the man that gets a particular job, but that 95 per cent. is absolutely wasted when he gets no work at all. But if he has a little land, he can use his 95 per cent. or 90 per cent., or, as he gets older, his 80 or 75 per cent. of strength and skill on that land, and it will be so much to the good.

Again, dwelling outside the town, if it were made possible by cheap and rapid transit, would widen the range of possible occupation. A man might till the garden of another man who is working overtime and cannot attend to it himself, but is willing to pay a