Scotland's Dire Housing Needs: 100,000 Dwellings Wanted by Glasgow: 18 Built: Overwhelming "Wet"
Victory at Local Veto Polls From Our Own Edinburgh, Dec. 22.
The Government have taken a bold step to remedy the present alarm-jug shortage of houses in Scotland.
few weeks ago they offered a subsidy of £40 for each house built, ut the response was s0 poor that it was withdrawn They have, how ever decided to proceed at once wita She erection of 2, C00 houses by alternative methods at not _more than six selected centres. For. this purpose they are using a private fompaty as their agent, and they have already placed an order for 1,000 of the Weir type of house.
The Government are well aware what this decision portends—a trial of strength with the building trade in Scotland, employers and trade unions alike, The Weir houses, Leing made of steel by mer thods of mass_—_production, ave at no time been popt= Jar with any section of the building industry, But the trade unions have fought them with a peculiar ferocity, ard on the ground, that fseoms to most people indefensible, that the workers on these steel constructions should be paid as were handling bricks and mortar, Rather than concede that point they have allowed the housing shortage to become inten sifed, and lave resisted all efforts to reduce it except on their own terms.
We shall goon sce whether Scot land is more conecrred to defend the unwarrantable pretensions of the trade unions and to feed thei rapacity than to obtain more houses. Tt is nothing to the point to sy that houses of brick or stone are preferable to those of conerete or steel or timber. Thad ig not denied; but what, the Town Counc, and Jocul authorities in Scotland generally, have been slow to appreciate is that under present conditions we ere making no pro-grees at all in overcoming the great shortage of houses in Scotland.' On the contrary, owing to the ace money, the position getting worse. England has done much better than Scotland in providing new houses, If Birmingham in the last five years, with a return of over 4,300 new' houses, cuts a capital figure, Glasgow with only 1,100 new houses cuts a very poor one, It is an amazing phenomenon that with a shortage of houses estimated at 100,000, Glasgow, under the 1924 Act, has built only 18, while Birmingham has built " hundred times as many.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.