SEVERE ON WELLINGTON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 18, 16 October 1907, Page 7

SEVERE ON WELLINGTON.

■" Oi\ T E OP. THE SCANDALS OF THE UNIVERSE." VIEWS OF THE REV, J. J. NORTH. [BY TEMGItArH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Auckland, October 15. Speaking at the Baptist Conference yesterday, tho Rev. J. J. North was very sovoro upon Wellington. Ho referred to the high price of land in Wellington, and the little backyards " no bigger thau a blanket " which tho workors had to bo content with. In reply to a question as to what ho thought should be dono to givo peoplo large backyards, ho stated that tho Parliament of Now Zealand was at present considering tho land question, and it oiifjht to givo this matter attention. Ho was, as certain as he lived that Wellington was one of the scandals of the Universe The working-men's children wero forced to play in tho streets, the hotbeds of corruption. His own children wero also obliged to play thero, because ho could .not afford a bigger rent. There was "a Kolly gang " in tho form of land syndicates and land-grabbers going round Wellington, and tho sooner they did away with them tho better. His definition of tho "rights of man , " was that every man should get "a fair whack." • Ho also declared, when asked to define tho Church, that tho Church of Christ was not ihado of and cash, but was the eternal brotherhood of Christ.

Mr. Worth also' said the worker paid a shocking prico for a poor, placo. Thero was ample land round Wellington for its sparse population of a mero 60,000'0r 80,000. Its hopeful citizons anticipated" that it would Jiavo a'quarter of a million very soon.

It was in reply to a question as to the feasibility of appointing a rent tribunal that Mr. North mad.o his "Kelly gang" reference the death of land syndicates and land monopolies was, ho said,.one of the things pious men wore hoping for, .- '"