CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19813, 28 December 1929, Page 14

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND.

TO IHE EDITOB Or THI PRXSS Sir,—ln last Saturday's issue you very courteously published a letter of mine in reply to Mr J. A. Redpath. That gentleman has not so far challenged ii.y statements. In to-day's issue, however, Mr J. J. Dougall has been making some equally reckless statements to Press readers. Mr Dougall has been enjoying the rare luxury of a leisurely tour round the world with his wife. It will perhaps be safe to assume that he has been on holiday for a period of at least six months. He has the cool audacity to come back home boiling with wrath and indignation because "nobody in England is bothering his head about work." Mr Dougall no doubt would have an attack of syncope were all the great captains of industry to take life a little more leisurely and also go for a pleasant six months' holiday round the world.

I had better not mention the toilers of England, for financial reasons: they can only dream about sueh beautiful things. "Mr Dougall, with the sangfroid of a Kaffir boss, sternly commands all England to cease from thumbtwiddling and settle down and get a move on. Has he been taking lessons from the dictator of Italy? We must keep our weather eye open, for one can never tell what might happen when Mr Dougall starts throwing his weight about in New Zealand. Without being presumptuous or impertinent, I would humbly suggest that he try to settle down himself, take his coat off, and set a good example to the industrialists and workers of Great Britain who have not been "bothering about work" lately. Mr Dougall says the unemployed of Britain prefer the "dole" to work. I challenge him to give facts and figures, on a really reliable authority. Not his "friend in Wigan"! Comedians on tjie music-halls of London have only to say, "I come from Wigan!'' and the house roars with shrieks of laughter. As a New Zealander I never could understand the joke; now I am beginning to understand.

Seriously, Sir, would Mr Dougall let the unemployed starve, or favour riots for food? Would he drive the poor unfortunate girls who are out of work on the London Btreets? He says those who were getting the "dole" were "respectably dressed." Would he like to know how they keep themselves so marvellously clean and respectable when thousands of them are only working part-time throughout the year? Well, nobody seems to know exactly how they do it. But if he goes to Petticoat lane in the East End lie will see thousands of men and women buying second-hand clothes and shoes, left off by their more fortunate sisters from the West End. "Tally men" also supply them with goods on small weekly time payments. Let him also read Mrs Pember Reeves's book ("Round About a Pound a Week") on how the poor live. Tens of thousands of them "live," four, five, six, and even more, in single rooms, boys and girls of adult age sleeping together in the same room and in some cases the same bed. Mrs Cooper (now Mrs Hitchcock), a New Zealand journalist, who is a slum worker in London, will tell Mr Dougall, next time he goes on a pleasure trip to London, some heart* rending things about the misery of the poor creatures in the slums. The practical sympathy and kindness of the good people of Christchurch at Christmas-time towards suffering humanity was really wonderful, and the newspapers played a noble part in what was done. The kindly-hearted Mayor wants the people to do more after Christmas. He says the poverty and unemployment of Christchurch is "a scourge and a menace." Perhaps Mr Dougall will get down to brass tacks and help to remove the "scourge and menace" from his own doorstep before he again ventures to upbraid people in the Homeland (dear England) who are honestly doing their very best under unprecedented conditions. I sincerely regret the length of this letter, Sir, but perhaps you may find some of it of interest to your readers. —Yours, etc., ANGLO-NEW ZEALAND. December 27th, 1929.