But there are other factors which also contribute to the backwardness of domestic engineering. The smallness of the household is one. It pays a large hotel, for instance, to buy special machines for cleaning knives, or to instal superheated steam, for washing plates and dishes. But neither the initial expense nor the cost of running could be met out of the funds at the disposal of the small household. Another reason exists in the fact that the average housewife does not distinguish between annual and capital outlay. Unaccustomed to finance, and keeping accounts--if she keeps them at all--in a very amateurish fashion, she fails to understand that capital expenditure, let us say, on one of the little electric vacuum cleaners now on the market might pay for itself in a short time by saving the wages of a charwoman. (_a_) THE ORGANISATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD AS AFFECTED BY THE HOUSING QUESTION Then, finally, few people own their houses, and are therefore disinclined to make an outlay which would benefit their successors rather than themselves. Landlords (who are frequently retired tradesmen or elderly ladies depending on the rent of a row of houses for their sole income) are in their turn unprogressive and unenlightened. It is often hard to induce a landlord of the type indicated to consent to structural changes even if carried out at the tenant's expense. The builders of new houses, again, are not, to put it mildly, educated in the best schools of household architecture and domestic engineering. It is true that in some suburbs, largely under the influence of the more competent architects employed by the garden city organisations, a marked improvement in domestic building is noticeable. But only too often the hot-water system is inefficient, the ventilation poor, the grates wasteful, and so on. I have never yet heard of a speculative builder who deliberately planned the laying out of the streets in the area which he was developing in such a way that the living-rooms might have a maximum and the larder and pantries a minimum of sunlight. The new roads are usually all set at right angles to the main street, and the houses rigidly planted square to the roads, regardless of the points of the compass. All these factors, acting together, prevent that general improvement in the construction of houses which is noticeable in other branches of industry. Progress does, of course, take place. The pressure exercised by the local health authorities leads to improved drainage and plumbing; lighting, owing to the recent competition between gas and electricity, has become both cheaper and better. But an intelligent application of science and investment of capital when a house is under construction could easily effect still further improvements.