That, however, was a course which Parliament for many years did not think it desirable to adopt, and which, when adopted in a tentative and half-hearted sort of way, suffered the usual fate of sanitary legislation--that of being neglected, opposed, evaded, or thwarted by land-owners, house-owners, middlemen, and by hostile local authorities. Lord Ashley also originated and succeeded in the same Session in obtaining from Parliament another Act of notable interest, namely, "The Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act,"[46] which aimed at increasing the quantity of houses for working men by facilitating the establishment of well-ordered houses for such persons. It gave power to vestries to adopt the Act, and thereafter to purchase or lease land, and to erect houses thereon for the working classes, and to borrow money on the security of the rates for this purpose. In advocating his plan in the House of Commons he enforced the importance of the reform. He said:-- "Until the domiciliary condition of the working classes were Christianised (he could use no less forcible a term) all hope of moral or social improvement was utterly vain. Though not the sole, it was one of the prime sources of the evils that beset their condition; it generated disease, ruined whole families by the intemperance it promoted, cut off or crippled thousands in the vigour of life, and filled the workhouses with widows and orphans."[47] He specially mentioned one of the objections urged to this proposal for the construction of better houses--an objection which since then has invariably found expression when any amelioration of the housing of the working classes has been proposed to be done by a public authority. "It was said those matters ought to be left to private speculation. He should much object to that. Private speculation was very much confined to the construction of the smallest houses, and of the lowest possible description, because it was out of these the most inordinate profits could be made. Private speculation was almost entirely in that direction." He might have added that "private speculation" had hitherto had a completely free field in the sphere of housing, with all the evil results visible before them, and that it had aggravated and intensified the evil instead of removing or mitigating it. The debate in Parliament was interesting, as it drew from the Home Secretary an expression of the Government view of the situation. "After all," said Sir G. Grey, "it was not to the Government, it was rather to the efforts of individuals, and associations of individuals, that they must look for real and general improvement among the great body of the people. All that the Government could do was to remove obstacles in the way, and to present facilities by modifications of the law more useful than direct legislation."[48]