Note 83 — Chapter XX · EMPRESS OF INDIA.

The Bill had these defects: (1), It was permissive and not compulsory. (2), It forced local authorities to compensate owners of insanitary dwellings doomed to destruction. The worse the rookeries the higher the rents, and the more extravagant the compensation, so that the Bill put a premium on the creation of rookeries. (3), It enacted that workmen’s houses must be rebuilt on the cleared land. This rendered it impossible to sell the sites at prices covering the cost of clearing them, so that local authorities had (a) to keep the land on hand in the hope of getting their price, during which time the displaced inhabitants were pushed into adjoining neighbourhoods already overcrowded; or (b) after five years to sell the sites by auction at a loss. On the 4th of July, 1879, the Metropolitan Board of Works sold some of their sites to the Peabody Trustees at a loss of £600,000 to the ratepayers of London.