LIVING CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 105, 4 May 1926, Page 3

LIVING CONDITIONS

(To tht Editor.)

Sir,—ln your iasuo of the Ist inst.' there appears a letter signed "Disgusted" dealing with the question of high rents. I; think, Sir, that his letter is well-timed, as it is nothing short of scandalous what is asUcd for rentals here for so-called houses. Now Zealand may lie a working man's country, but so far as I enh see one needs to bo a small capitalist to livb comfortably (not extravagantly). It is all very well to describe the Dominion in flowery language as "God's Own Country," . but describing it thus doesn't mak«.it Utopia, I contend

that living conditions, so far as Wellington is concerned at any rate,, are inott unsatisfactory. The prices asked for houses, and wooden ones at that, 'to buy-^or* rent, ar« absolutely extortionate, but.'.Wenfrigtoniani blissfully pay through the nose for everything; and say smugly, "Well, it's God'» Own Country." The greats/majority of Wellington, .people are wage^earuers, and under existing conditions must'find'it moit difficult. Under the circumstances it i» quite easy to understand the great growth of. tha instalment system (which recently. Sir Harold Boatichamp so ■-roiiitdly condemned), but it seems" to me- that peopl* are being driven into this system-by necet-. city. The letter ,by "Disgusted" *kould bo a welcome critwujm, illustrating as it do*i what the ordinary, wage-earner is up against to-day.—l am, etc., • 3rd' May. '■. • '. v .jFAIR PLAY.