FAMILY SHIFTED FROM CAMP

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22376, 13 April 1938, Page 10

FAMILY SHIFTED FROM CAMP

CHILDREN SLEPT IN

CAR

UNAUTHORISED USE OF

TENTS

REMOVAL FOLLOWS VISIT BY

HON. R. SEMPLE

The conditions under which a man, his wife, and six children were living in two tents and a motor-car on the flat at the foot of Porter’s Pass were investigated yesterday by the Minister for Public Works (the Hon. R. Semple). He described the conditions as a “disgrace to civilisation” and ordered the family to leave the camp (which is for single men) without delay. An hour after the Minister had issued the ultimatum, the family was packing its few belongings. When the Minister found on Thursday that the mother and the six children were living under conditions far from suitable at Porter’s Pass, he immediately gave instructions ' that they were to be shifted from the camp. The woman and five of the children, the sixth being in hospital, were brought to the city on Saturday, but,*unexpectedly, all returned to the tents on Monday. Contrary to Regulations

The family’s residence at Porter’s Pass*, where the man had been engaged on road work, was not sanctioned by the engineers of the Public Works Department, the Minister explained, and it was contrary to all regulations that they should have gone to Porter’s Pass. The man had plainly told that the camp was for single men, and when his family had arrived the foreman in charge had acted in a humanitarian spirit in giving them another tent. “You cannot stay here for another day—you must get out,” the Minister told the man when he was called to the roadside from his improvised home. Between the two tents,' on an open flat above a creek, a motorcar of an old type was standing, and when the father came across the paddock to interview the Ministe”, two little children clambered from it. The car had been used as a bedroom by three of the children, and the only other sleeping accommodation in the two tents was a double bed and a stretcher.

The improvised home was without any amenities of even a camp in an isolated place and, after inspecting it, Mr Semple expressed himself as appalled that a family should have to live in such atnanner. Some of the children of school age were being denied education; but the Minister was assured by Miss H. Burnett, who with Mr A, Bissett, also of the Child Welfare Department, accompanied him on the visit, that the children were all well nourished. The man, who had been suspended from the payroll until he removed his family, asked if a position could be found for hirtl in the city. Mr Semple: Get them down there first, and then I will talk business with you. Care of the Children Miss Burnett, Mr Bissett, and Mr A. H. Hamilton, president and organiser of the Canterbury section of, the New Zealand Workers f Union, discussed the situation with the man and his wife, and. after a while, they agreed to shift without delay to the city. Arrangements were made for three of the children to enter homes and the others to stay with relatives. They left for the city in the motor-car, used by the man to make weekly trips to Christchurch. The worker was told by-the Minister that he had no right to run a car when he could not keep his family or pay his rent. “I worked for over four years on Public Works, and I could not afford a car,” Mr Semple said. Paysheets supplied to the Minister showed that, for a year, the man’s earnings had been 16s a day, averaged over fine and wet periods.

Other Families Remain

' Determined that other married women on a part of the camp at Porter’s Pass should also be shifted, the Minister motored to the plot occupied by their homes, but after an inspection of the living conditions, he agreed that the families should remain and he arranged for provision of some accommodation to make life easier for the women.

“You haven’t?” queried one woman with unrestrained concern, when Mr Semple told her that he had resolved to shift the women. Her feelings were shared by another woman. Both said that the Workers’. Union had informed them plainly that the accommodation at the camp was for single men; but they were happy at the pass. Their pleas to be left with their husbands met with the sympathy of Mr Semple, who was impressed with the comfort and tidiness of the tents and the efforts of the men to improve the surroundings.

“I’ll always help those, who help themselves," he said.- “These women have come here of their own free will and they are contented. I would not be guilty of taking them away from their husbands under these conditions.”