LAND AND LABOR.

Evening Star, Issue 14631, 29 July 1911, Page 12

LAND AND LABOR.

fThis crjrnnn, which has been set-add© for the discussion of land and labor problems, is edited by Mr Arthur Withy, general secretary of tb© New, Zealand Land Values League. - with whom alone rests responsibility - for the opinions expressed therein.] PLAGUE ROUSES AUCKLANDERS. DEMOLITION Of"dISREPUTABLE SLUM DWELLINGS. WHAT THE AUCKLAND ‘HERALD’ HAS TO SAY. The following article, reproduced, with the addition of one or two headlines, from the Auckland ‘ Herald,’ shows that the plague has wakened up the inhabitants of the northern city to some purpose: “In several parts of the idly there are outward and visible signs of the clearance that the city authorities have begun to make among the most disreputable of Auckland’s slum dwellings. Some weeks ago a number of striking cases of VERY* OLD AND INSANITARY houses were described in the ‘ Herald,’ and it is gratifying that a large number of those buildings have been condemned, and that several of them have been demolished, ’their places are now occupied by gaping spaces, littered with the scraps of wrecked foundation and chimneys. Some of these sites may be seen in the neighborhood of Federal and Durham streets. Condemned houses arc scattered about in various parts of the city, and as the owneirs are required to use the utmost possible expedition in removing them, they should not exist much longer. A reporter visited several of them yesterday, and found that in some instances at least the official and artificial process of destruction has apparently but little anticipated an entirely natural end bv decay. One house in particular, standing upon a section presumably of considerable value, is said to have been marked ‘To Let’ till quite recently. But it is tottering to its fall; its back door has seen its last locking. The quiet and contented Chinese, who satisfy themselves with very modest attributes to comfort. arc the unlucky tenants of several of the old rattle-traps, and have to find new homes. MANY HOUSES AFFLICTED WITH •RICKETS.’

“It is perhaps not altogether open for a casual surveyor to express a final opinion, but the tour made yesterday indicated the existence of a good number of premises which arc of a character not compatible with the comfort and beauty of a large and self-respecting city. It is recognised that the cost of making a. clean sweep of the old and dilapidated buildings in Auckland would be enormous, and that it might he the cause of much inconvenience to the people living in them. But there are a number of these houses in which no one is now living. Of those which are occupied some are of such a character that they should not be allowed to pass into the hands of new tenants. The houses are in many cases afflicted with ‘ rickets ’; in others the outer walls are decayed, and give rise to suspicion that the interiors must be in a had state. One house in particular, with a front door several feet above the ground level, has no steps from the door, which looks disconsolately out over the front fence. In the heart of the city there are miserable homes with back yards in which the shortest of cats could not be swung without damage to the fences. MISERABLE DWELLINGS HIDDEN AWAY' IN HOLLOWS. “Access to many of these old places is difficult and often filthy: and a- little search will often reveal dwellings hidden away in hollows, or behind rows of shops, where no one would ever suspect that they existed. In these miserable dwellings live men and women and little children, the adults doing their best towards the creation of the homo spirit of the city, the children extracting what enjoyment they can from a few square feet of playground. a plentiful supply of sloppy mud, and a variety of unwholesome but doubtless entertaining smells. These people do not. seem to realise that they are living in surroundings not fit for them. Within a few weeks a good deal has been done in the clearing away of houses in an extremely bad condition. But the removal of those which were worst leaves those which were a. stage behind them in badness occupying the glory of pre-eminence in this respect; and now they hold out a mute appeal to the executioner of houses to bring them to the, end of their miserable existence as soon as possible.”

YET 'THE • HERALD ’ OPPOSES ROOF REMEDIES.

The facts being as stated above, if the editor of the Auckland ‘Herald’ has any real knowledge of economics, or if ho has any real regard for justice and fair play, and any real sens© of civic responsibility, he should demand the abolition of all taxes, national and local, now levied upon the houses of the people, and the taxation of land values instead. The failure to lew substantial rates and taxes on land values makes sites dear, and without sites is is impossible to build houses. The Customs taxes levied upon timber, cement, corrugated iron, lead piping, tanks, nails, paints and varnishes, etc., together with the wholesalers’ and the retailers’ profits "on tho duties, make houses cost about one-third more to build than they ought to cost. And the local rates levied upon the houses of the people also tend to make houses fewer, worse, and dearer. Yet the •Herald,’ once an advocate of Freotrade, has “ verted ” to _ Protection, and no paper in tho Dominion opposes more strenuously the rating and taxation of land values! Arthur Withy.