NBWTA Report 1903-051
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96 THE PROBLEM OF on OUR CITIES. The second factor in our physical degeneracy is to be found in the problem of our great cities. It seems difficult to understand how the nation can be blind to the moral and physical effects to ten million of the inhabitants who at this present moment are living in dwellings in which no farmer would put his cattle, and I venture to maintain that this question and the drink evil are inextricably interwoven. I do not believe that if the Housing Question had been resolutely dealt with the drink evil would have attained its enormous proportions, nor do I believe that it would be possible for the people to remain content with the surroundings from which they ought to rise and revolt were it not for the constant power of the soporific of drink. The closing words of the King’s reply to an address presented to him by the London County Council on his accession to the throne are, I think, weighty and wise :— ‘*In the discharge of your onerous duty which closely concerns the ‘welfare of millions of my people, I am confident you will not slacken “the efforts which you have made and are making for dealing satis- “‘factorily with the difficult questions which weigh your consideration, “and especially that of the proper housing of the working classes, “which is one in which I have always felt the deepest personal “interest.” And the message delivered by the Prince of Wales in the London Guildhall on his return from a tour round the world was one, I think, to which all England needs to listen, when he said ‘‘ Wake up.” “Wake up.” We need to ask ourselves, why is it that Com- mission after Commission has sat and reported on this Housing Question, individual municipalities have dealt with the matter, and yet have failed to secure for the inhabitants a minimum of decent, healthy surroundings? ‘The interest of the State should stand before all other interests, but in this question of the housing of the people it has been truly said that the interest of the individual landlord, the jerry-builder and the slum-owner have stood between the sick nation and the recovery of its health. THE REAL EDUCATION There is a large Jewish school in Berners Street, off Commercial Road, in a district so thickly populated by Jews that the notifications of the School Board have to be in Hebrew or Viddish as well as in English, and in the boys’ portion of the building there are 332 scholars on the roll, of whom only eight are Christians. Mr. Hadfield, the head master, when questioned as to the extremely healthy appear- ance of the children, said he had no doubt that the boys were better fed and better conditioned than English children of the same class, as this was demonstrated when they went to the baths to learn to swim. “And what is the explanation of that,” he was asked. “I think,” he said, “that their parents, who are sober people, look after them and “feed them well.” He said that the parents cared more that the children should have food than clothing, and that often the poorly dressed ones were exceedingly plump and healthy ; that the parents would rather go short than let the children suffer, or would starve themselves sooner than see them want. He then went on to say that the children were keener and quicker than English children, first because they knew their parents had a sincere desire that they should go to school. “As far as school is “concerned,” he said, ‘(the Jews take every advantage. There is no “question of forcing the children to come.” And then he added this very remarkable fact :—“I have heard,” he said, “ of only one drunken ‘“* Jewish parent since I have been here. If we had had 300 English “boys we should have had more trouble with the parents. Here we ““have none because the parents are on the side of the teacher.” The master added that when English boys predominated in the school it had never got the ‘‘excellent” merit grant, but as soon as Jewish scholars became excellent, and now always earns the highest merit amounted to more than fifty per cent. the the school grant. But a few months has passed since that splendid statue was erected with the House of Commons as its background, and I often think when 1 see the outline of that strong figure looking out upon London to-day that Oliver Cromwell says to us once more :— “Let us have one heart and soul; one mind, to retain the honest “and just rights of this nation ; not to pretend to them, to the destruction ‘of our peace and to the destruction of our nation.” QUESTION. These are days when the controversy surrounding the question of Education is raging with unabated heat, but I believe that no education will be efficient until we realize that the children, cold, and pinched and hungry, who crowd our Board Schools and come into our National Schools, are unfit to receive education at all, that the child who comes breakfastless to school and sits in damp rags and returns to sleep ina cellar, whose playground is the street, whose home influence is a drunken mother and father, is incapable of profiting by the most carefully thought-out curriculum that could be devised, and that health of body must be secured as well as cultivation of the mind. Mr. Batrour’s SPEECH It is not surprising speech should have HAS MATERIALIZED that the principles IN MR. BurcHER’s Bint. embodied in Mr. Balfour’s materialized in Mr. Butcher’s Bill for the compen- sation of licence-holders who may be refused renewal of their licences “because the house was not considered necessary for the convenience “or the welfare of the people among whom it was situated,” a Bill, in fact, for the endowment of the public-house. There are a thousand reasons why Mr. Butcher’s and Sir William Hart Dyke’s Bill must at this hour be strenuously opposed. It has been well-called a “ Reduction and Prevention Bill,’ and the absurd |