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This article in Forward requests the paper's readership to forward any instances and details of recent rent increases to the secretary of the Labour Party housing committee in Glasgow. These examples of rent increases were then forwarded to the Labour MP George Barnes and presented to the prime minister Herbert Asquith as examples of wartime profiteering by Glasgow landlords.
As the article shows, the Labour press in Glasgow, and especially the Independent Labour Party newspaper Forward, were deployed very early on to lead a concerted campaign against the unpatriotic actions of the landlords and to highlight the more extreme instances of injustice against working-class tenants.
Ultimately, the landlords' push for higher rents was resisted within the affected communities, and through the determination of local women and the solidarity and organisation of workers on the Clyde, the government was left with little option but to introduce the Rent Restrictions Act in 1916.
Source: Gallacher Memorial Library, Glasgow Caledonian University Special Collections and Archives
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