BIG PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 35, 10 August 1921, Page 12

BIG PROBLEMS

SHOCKING CONDITIONS IN

CHRISTCHURCH

A deputation from the Social Welfare Guild, whifih waited on the Canterbury Members' of Parliament Committee on Saturday, revealed a shocking state of affairs in parts of this city (states the Lyttelton Times). Mrs. H. F. Herbert said that the housing problem was particularly troublesome. In one case as many as twen-ty-two people were living in a fourroomed house. A man, his wife, and nine children' lived in another fourroomed house. Amongst the twenty-two people, five girls had to sleep in a washhouse, a mere shack. There were a man, wife, and six children in a so-called five-roomed house. Three more adults and eight children now had gone into the same, house. A man, wife, and three lihildren were living in a threeroomed house, and two ' men boarders had been taken in. The diphtheria outbreak was due not to bad drainage, but to crowded conditions.

Rent was another problem, Mrs., Herbert continued. A woman with 'eight children had to pay 26s a week for a Bhackr-K)ne wall was white 1 with'mildew.' Th« floor upstairs was riddled with ratwholes. The rent that should be charged was 12s a week, according to the valuation of the property. Unfortunately, in many cases it was working people themselves who were exploiting their fellow^ workers. A man was renting a hqijse for 12s 6d a week, and was reletting three roome for £1 each. That kind of exploitation should be stopped, Sister Edith knew of a man, \wife, and ten children who were living in two tents in New Brighton in very unsanitary conditions. • '

Mrs. Herbert mentioned ab a third problem neglect by consumptives to prevent their disease spreading. An immigrant, his wife, and six children, she said, rented a four roomed hous*. The mother and one daughter slept in the front bedroom. v The mother waa consumptive. Two children, slept' in a small back room, and one of them, a girl, was consumptive. It va* in Syde'nham. They paid 30s a week for the house. In another four-roomed hous* in Sydenham tjjere were a man, wife, and eight children. ■ The wife had been in a sanatorium, and one' girl bad bad to j?o into the country because she had .signs .of consumption. The Wife would not stay in the sanatorium, and went home. A consumptive man, who left the sanatorium, went home to his wife and two children. They lived in one room. A man, wife, and three children slept on one mattress, placed on the floor; the wife was consumptive. She knew case after case of consumptives'who would not stay in the sanatorium, and went spitting through the streets, a menace to all. .Dr. Blackmore had urged that one place should be set aside for consumptives from the whole of New Zealand, where they could be forcibly detained. They would not take precautions, and there nvuet be legislation to provide for their detention until they were cured, or until they died. Nothing could be don© for consumptive children because- there was no proper place for them. If' the public only realised to the full tha position of parents with large families-, sometfiing would: be done for them. The City Council had erected workers' homes, but they were too expensive. People who needed them most could not take them. 'Dr. Blackmore could mention dozens of other-, case?, ..; In one';,.house that, came, under' '""his."notice, the' 'woananj' a consumptive had been drinking heavily. Shff had spat all, over the house,, the ■sputum clinging to the waills. A con-., eumptiye husband was always fondling his children. Five of them were, consumptive,', and the wife, the- last time Mrs. Herbert saw her, showed signs of the disease.-. Consumptives frequented ihaf\els. The passes'they u Lsfid never were sterilised. They spat- at the street corners. A master builder had told her that a comfortable home/could be (built for £500. Workers' houses should mot be erected in settlements, as at Papanui. They were, too much like pauper settlements. There should be one or two in a plot or square, and others tin other streets.. :-: ,

The members of ParJiam«nt v present' decided to consider .the statements made.