_Germany._--In no country is the problem of housing more acute than in Germany, where the increase of population, the growth of manufacturing industry and the urbanization of the people have proceeded at an exceptionally rapid pace in recent years and have combined with increasing wealth and a rising standard of living to force the question into prominence. Up to 1909 no uniform legislation for the empire had been framed and no central authority existed for dealing with housing; but the several states have their own public health and housing laws, and great activity has been developed in various directions. The most general difficulty is deficiency of quantity consequent on the rapid change in the distribution of the population. The proportion of the whole population living in the great towns increased from 7.2% to 16.2%, or more than doubled between 1890 and 1900; in England it only increased by about one-tenth. Slums are a much less conspicuous feature than in England because of the comparatively recent development of German towns, but where old quarters exist on a large scale, as in Hamburg, the conditions are quite as bad as anything in English towns, and call for similar measures. Public sanitation in Germany is still as a whole less advanced than in England; but in some cases it is superior and in general it is coming up rapidly; the administration of sanitary laws, as of others, is more effective and uniform, and less subject to evasion. This also contributes to the comparative absence of slums. And there is a third factor which has perhaps the greatest influence of all, and that is the superior manner in which German homes are kept. But the pressure of inadequate quantity is urgent; it has caused high rents, overcrowding, and the development of large barrack or block dwellings which are becoming the prevailing type. At the same time it has led to many and varied efforts to meet the difficulty. Isolated attempts go back to an early date. For instance a building society was formed in Berlin in 1849, Alfred Krupp began to build his "colonies" at Essen in 1863, Barmen started a society in 1871 and there were other cases; but general attention seems first to have been drawn to the subject by the reforming efforts of Pastor Bodelschwingh at Bielefeld about 1884 in connexion with his _Arbeiterheim_. In short housing reform in Germany is really a matter of the last 20 years. The first efficient by-laws for regulating building in Berlin were not adopted till 1887; the previous regulations dating from 1853 permitted many abuses and under them a great deal of bad housing was constructed, especially after the establishment of the empire and the beginning of the great development of the capital. Entry: OTHER
_Sanitary Conditions._--With regard to the quality of existing housing reference has already been made to the effect of the Public Health Acts and the general improvement in sanitation. The only numerical measure is afforded by the death-rates, which have fallen in England from 20.9 per 1000 in 1871-1875 to 15.4 per 1000 in 1903-1907 and in the United Kingdom from 21.3 to 15.7 per 1000 in the same period. The condition of the dwelling must be credited with a considerable share in this fall. There have, in fact, been great changes and all in the direction of improvement. The rise and development of sanitation, of house and main drainage and sewage disposal, the purification of water and provision of a constant service in the house, the removal of refuse, the segregation of infectious illness, sanitary inspection--all these, apart from the demolition of the worst housing and the provision of better, have raised the general healthiness of the dwellings of the people. In face of these facts and of the vital statistics, to say that the people are physically deteriorating through the influence of bad housing is to talk obvious nonsense, for all conditions have been improving for more than a generation. If physical deterioration is going on, of which there is no proof, either it is not caused by bad housing or there is less than there was. Deterioration may be caused by the continued process of urbanization and the congregating of an ever larger proportion of the population in towns; but that is a different question. If the town has any injurious influence it is not due to the sanitary condition of the houses, which is in general superior to that of houses in the country, but to the habits and occupations of the people or to the atmosphere and the mere aggregation. But much misapprehension prevails with regard to towns. The most distinctive and the most valuable feature of English housing is the general predominance of the small house or cottage occupied by a single family. Only in London and a few other towns do blocks of large tenement houses of the continental type exist, and even there they are comparatively few. In England and Wales 84% of the population live in dwellings of 4 rooms and upwards, which means broadly separate houses. Now the prevalence of small houses involves spreading out and the covering of much ground with many little streets, which produce a monotonous effect; a smoky atmosphere makes them grimy and dull skies contribute to the general dinginess. The whole presents to the eye a vast area of dreary meanness and monotony. Thus the best feature of English national housing turns to its apparent disadvantage and the impression is gained by superficial observers that the bulk of our working-class populations lives in "slums." The word "slum" has no precise meaning, but if it implies serious sanitary defects it is not applicable to most of our town housing. There are real slums still, but the bulk of the working class population do not live in them; they live in small houses, often of a mean and dingy exterior but in essential respects more sanitary than the large and often handsome blocks to be seen in foreign towns, which are not put down as slums because they do not look dirty. A smoky atmosphere is injurious to health, but it must be distinguished from defects of housing. Ideal houses in a smoky place soon look bad; inferior ones in a clean air look brighter and deceive the eye. The worst of the old housing has disappeared; the filthy, dilapidated, airless and sunless rookeries--the real slums--and the underground dwellings have been swept away in most cases, and what remains of them is not so bad as what has gone. But reform has been very regularly applied. Some towns have done much, others little. The large towns, in which the evil was most intense and most conspicuous in bulk, have as a class done far more than smaller ones in which the need perhaps was less great, but in which also a less healthy public spirit prevailed. The worst housing conditions to-day are probably to be found in old towns of small and medium size, in which the ratepayers have a great disinclination to spend money on anything, and the control of local affairs is apt to be in the hands of the owners of the most insanitary property. Nor is this state of things altogether confined to old places. Some of recent growth have been allowed, for the same reason, to spring up and develop without any regard to sanitary principles or the requirements of public health. There is therefore abundant scope for further reform and in not a few cases urgent need of it. On the other hand, we have a number of towns, particularly manufacturing towns, both large and small in the midlands and the north of England, which have already reached a good general standard of housing in all essential requirements, and only need the regular and steady exercise of vigilance by the public health service to remove such defects as still remain or may reveal themselves with the lapse of time. Entry: 1891
The very divergencies make the uniform diminution of overcrowding the more remarkable. The large increase of population in Liverpool and Bristol no doubt means extension of boundaries, which might have the effect of reducing the proportions of overcrowding, but it cannot account for the actual decrease of overcrowded persons. The change seems to be due to three factors all of which have been in general operation though in varying degrees. They are (1) the centrifugal movement promoted by improved locomotive facilities, (2) the declining birth-rate, (3) public health administration. (1) The first is the most important and the chief element has been tramways, of which a great extension accompanied by electrification took place in the decade. Thus the process of urbanization has been modified by one of suburbanization. Bristol is a prominent case; its overcrowding has been reduced by more than one-half without any large and costly municipal interference, mainly through the operation of ordinary economic forces. Tramways have made the outskirts accessible and builders have utilized the opportunity. They have built good houses, too, under supervision, and Bristol, though an old seaport and industrial town with much poverty, has the lowest general death-rate and the lowest infantile death-rate of all the great towns. (2) The birth-rate and the size of families are conditions which affect overcrowding in a very marked degree, though no attention is paid to them in that connexion. The case of the mining districts and the towns on the Tyne has been mentioned above; the same thing is seen in London, where all the most overcrowded districts (Finsbury, Stepney, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green) have high birth-rates, ranging from 31.3 to 36.4 per 1000 in 1902-1906. The necessity imposed on poor parents of putting several children into a cheap and therefore small dwelling accounts for a large proportion of overcrowding, which automatically diminishes with a falling birth-rate. The ultimate advantage of this method of reducing overcrowding is a question on which opinions may differ, but there is no doubt about the fact. (3) Public health administration is the third general cause; it attracts no notice and works very gradually, but it does work. The last annual report (for 1907) of the medical officer to the London County Council says of overcrowding: "There is reason for thinking that in recent years greater attention has been paid by sanitary authorities to the abatement of the nuisance, and Dr Newman states that in Finsbury there has been an enormous reduction in overcrowding, the reduction having been effected mainly in the years 1901-1905." The medical officers of the metropolitan boroughs reported in 1907 2613 dwellings overcrowded in 23 boroughs and 3216 such dwellings remedied in 27 boroughs. It should not be forgotten that a good deal of overcrowding is voluntary. Families which have not enough room for their own members nevertheless take in lodgers; and in some places, of which London is the most conspicuous but not the only example, foreigners herd together thickly in a very small space. Entry: 1891