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we shall also have partially free housing. Meanwhile, the restriction of rents on houses privately owned will be rendered permanent. It is an appalling prospect, and will cost the taxpayers and the ratepayers immense sums per annum, but it is undoubtedly the plan deliberately favoured by the Socialist Labour Party.

The other policy is to endeavour to bring back private enterprise, and to remove rent restriction as soon as sufficient houses have been erected. The source which supplied 97 per cent. of the houses before the 1909-10 Budget should be encouraged to resume its activities, and municipal house building should merely supplement deficiencies where they exist, as was originally intended by Parliament. Fortunately, the land clauses of the People's Budget have been repealed.

The best way

of doing this would undoubtedly be to

subsidise private enterprise temporarily in the building of the type of house which cannot be built at present without State assistance, on account of the loss involved,

two ways, either by capital payments to builders for each house of the prescribed size, and on an agreed site On of the rates on such houses, which remission would of, say, 100l., or else by a remission or partial remission attach to the houses for a period of years and make them easily saleable at remunerative prices.

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plan has been adopted by the States of New York and New Jersey in America, and from figures supplied from the former it would appear to have stimulated building very greatly, especially in the case of tenement dwellings. Conditions, however, are so different in the U.S.A. from what they are here, that it is not easy to say how far it is applicable to this country. Local authorities would, of course, object that they were losing the rates which in the natural course would be paid by the new properties, and that the latter would cost them money in the shape of policing, sewerage, etc., which the other ratepayers would have to make good. On the other hand, may be argued that a valuable rateable property is being created which, at the end of the term of exemption, will be remunerative, and that without the exemption it would not be created at all. The matter is clearly one which could only be carried out with State assistance.

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There is much to be said for the plan of direct payments per house to private builders; but the objection to it is that it would throw on the taxpayers of to-day a very large immediate burden, and that in view of our heavy taxation this could not be tolerated. The subsidy system, on the other hand, spreads the burden over a term of years. Unfortunately, a subsidy is of no use to the private builder, especially to the small specu-i lative builder, who builds to sell, and by the nature of his occupation cannot hold. He makes his profit by turning his money over as rapidly as possible. The Government, however, for the reason given above, have adopted the subsidy plan, promising 67. a house for twenty years, which is estimated to represent half the loss on the smaller type of house to which the subsidy is limited, the local authority finding the other half.

This plan has some obvious advantages. In the first place, it strictly limits the liability of the State, which under the Addison scheme was unlimited. This limitation will render extensive supervision and control from Whitehall unnecessary. If the local authority chooses to be extravagant and to spend more than half the estimated loss on the houses, this will be no concern of the State, the additional burden falling on the ratepayers. The State will merely satisfy itself that the houses for which the subsidy is given are of the type prescribed by the Act, i.e. the smallest type. A great deal of controversy has arisen over the question as to whether the houses should have parlours or not. With the extension of the maximum from 850 to 950 superficial feet, there can be no doubt that parlour houses can for be provided; but in this connexion two considerations must be borne in mind. First of all, it is the fact that a very large number of the working classes live in nonparlour houses, preferring them on account of the cheaper rents, and in many cases they never use the parlours when they have got them. In the second place, and this is most important, the Government should certainly not subsidise any type of house except such as they are certain would not be built without a subsidy. The only justification for subsidising building at all is that without it the houses will not be forthcoming.

Another criticism, and a very absurd one, has been

I made that because the Government propose to allow 20 houses to be built to the acre instead of only 12, which was the number adopted by Dr Addison, they are creating slums. Do the people who talk like this realise that the real slums usually contain 50 to 60 houses to the acre, and very often more? The Brady Street area, Bethnal Green, now being cleared by the L.C.C., had 528 houses on 7 acres, or an average of over 75 houses to I had 88 houses. Twelve houses to the acre may be an the acre. The Crosby Row area of just over one acre excellent arrangement for a garden suburb, consisting of houses of different types, when the larger help to carry the smaller; but for a scheme consisting exclusively of the smaller type it is hopelessly extravagant. If anybody thinks that 20 houses to the acre create a slum he should visit the White Hart Lane housing scheme at Tottenham, the older part of which has considerably more than 20 houses to the acre, but anything less like a slum cannot be imagined.

The Government scheme possesses the further advantage that it distinctly encourages private enterprise. Though the subsidy is to be paid to the local authorities, it is laid down that they need not build themselves, but may assist private building enterprise' in various ways.

In fact they

are only to build themselves in cases where

they satisfy the Minister of Health that the needs of the area can best be met by their so doing.

The methods by which they may assist private enterprise are by borrowing money and making lump sum grants to builders; or by paying the whole or part of the rates for a period of years on the houses built; or by paying part of the interest on money advanced by a

building society. These are very valuable provisions and should result in the erection of a large number of houses. The chief objection to them is that certain local authorities will undoubtedly insist on building themselves, and it will not be easy for the Minister to compel them to employ private enterprise. Many local authorities have in recent years become greatly enamoured of municipal building and ownership, and it should be remembered that in the case of no inconsiderable number the Socialist Labour Party have a on the Councils. Every effort must be made

majority

by the Government to see that the clear intention of the Bill is carried out.

There are other proposals in the Bill such as payments to public utility societies and amendments of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act which may prove to be of great value; but the measure is in the main a temporary one intended to tide over an abnormal period. It is assumed that such a period may last for rather more than two years, during which time the subsidies will be granted and (presumably) rent restriction will remain in force. As such it is probably the best thing which can be done at the moment. Had it indeed been foreseen when the Bill was being prepared that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have so large a realised surplus in the year 1922-23 as a hundred millions, it might have been better to have diverted part of this from the repayment of debt under the Old Sinking Fund to financing housing by direct Treasury payments to private builders, even if this had technically involved reborrowing. Assuming the capital loss on a small house to be 100l. at present prices, and that the State made this good, 100,000 such houses could have been provided in this way by a contribution from the Exchequer of ten million pounds, or if we put the loss at 1251. by one of twelve million five hundred thousand pounds. It would still have been open to local authorities to build under Part III of the principal Act without State assistance, which a certain number were prepared to do; or the State might have granted them subsidies in cases where it was clear that private enterprise would not build. In any case it is earnestly to be hoped that by the end of 1925 sufficient houses will have been provided to enable the country to dispense with both subsidies and rent restriction. In this way only

we expect to return to economic conditions, and bring back private enterprise fully into play. The alternative is the permanent establishment of a most dangerous form of Municipal Socialism.

ARTHUR G. BOSCAWEN.

Art. 4.-THE HERITAGE OF THE ACTOR.

A PLAY is material for acting. It may be far more, but it must be that to begin with. The actor brings it to a technical completion. This, no doubt, puts the matter from the actor's point of view, and while the truth is indisputable, the emphasis of the statement may be misleading. Even so, this point of view counts; if only because, when we bring a play to the theatre, the actor's is the last word in the matter-till the public has its say. If it be argued that the play is implicitly complete when it leaves the author's hands, that the actor's business is interpretation merely, that he can, in truth, add nothing to and take nothing away from the material a competent playwright has given him—

There was once, in the 17th century, a gentleman, who, coming out of church on a Sunday morning, found week-day companion sitting in the stocks.

""What have they put you there for?" he asked. ""Getting drunk."

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Nonsense," said the church-goer, who was a legallyninded man; they can't put you in the stocks for being

drunk."

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""Zooks!" said the unfortunate reveller. "But they have!""

It is useless to argue that actors can add nothing o and take nothing from the material the playwright gives them. The answer is that they do.

This final part of the dramatic process, this putting of a play upon the stage, is, indeed, a distressingly ncalculable thing. Certainly it is interpretation, but no other kind of interpretation quite compares with Fit. Musicians have instruments that are more or less mechanical to perform on; even singers are tied, stave by stave, to definite notes. Singers and players will tell as, however, that they should be left ample discretion. They may add that the meticulous method of writing music is quite modern, that composers of the 18th century and earlier were content to put down on paper what they considered the essentials, and to leave far more to the artistry of their interpreters.

But let any one familiar with play production ask