NEWTOWN SLUMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 7

NEWTOWN SLUMS

PRIVATE TEECE CRITICAL

"I notice that Mr. McKeen has been taking me to task for suggesting that parts of the Wellington South electorate are little better than slum areas," said Private C. S. Teece, Democratic Labour, when addressing a well-at-tended meeting at Berhampore last night. "I think it is no credit to him that after 21 years as the district's representative conditions should be as they are. "I received the shock of my life when I visited some of the streets in Newtown recently. Even in the main street many of the buildings are disgraceful. Yet I cannot remember Mr. McKeen ever calling a meeting of owners of the properties to discuss the matter. A coat of paint at least would be something. I repeat: • conditions in the district are no credit to Mr. McKeen."

Discussing the shortage of doctors, Private Teece mentioned the case of a soldier who called at his committee room the other day. "This man," he said, "who is stone deaf in one ear, the result of a burst ear drum, and who has difficulty in breathing through his nose, has been back eight months. He received treatment for two months and then- was discharged on the ground that nothing more could be done, for him. Lately, he became worse and. visited a specialist, who, knowing that he was a returned man, sent him to the hospital immediately. There he was told that he would have to see the hospital specialist, but that would be impossible for a fortnight, since there were so many people waiting to see him. 'And I suppose,' the man told me," said Private Teece, " 'that when I go back they'll tell me I'll have to wait another two weeks.'"

"In the event of the Democratic Labour Party being elected to office will it take steps to abolish bodies like the Price Tribunal and the Internal Marketing Board?" asked a member of the audience, who related a personal experience. "Ten weeks ago," he said, "I faought a pair of shoes for a child of three and paid 19s 3d. I went to the Price Tribunal, filled in an elaborate form amid expensive furnishings, and was told that everything would be all right: I haven't heard a word since." In reply, the candidate said that he believed the Price Tribunal could be a useful body, but not under the present set-up. "Is it a fact that the Government claims that all married men of the •Ist, 2nd, and 3rd Echelons were returned to New Zealand with the furlough draft from the Middle East?" was a further question put by a soldier. "I understand tha,t is the position,"- said the candidate. "It was reported in papers in the Middle East that all married men in the. first three echelons were returned," added the questioner, "but' I know for a fact that that is not right. I have a friend, married with two children, and he's still there. Yet single men were brought back." . Private Teece was accorded a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence.