NEW INQUISITION

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11404, 3 January 1931, Page 9

NEW INQUISITION

A PRYING LOCAL AUTHORITY.

Barnsley Corporation, who recently forbade tenants of council houses to have gas installed in their homes under penalty of eviction—only to be defied by householders who have insisted on their right to use gas if they wish—have issued another instruction of their tenants that many of them are ignoring, says the “Daily Mail.”

A form has been received by them which has, in fact, caused a great deal of resentment. It is a questionnaire which calls on each tenant to. furnish particulars of his income, the nature of the tenant’s trade or profession, requires him to say whether he is unemployed, and, if so, for how long he has been, and asks: — Are you in receipt of unemployment benefit? If so, how much? Are you in receipt of relief from the Public Assistance Committee? If so, how much?

The tenant is further called on to state the number of children he has under fourteen years of age. Concerning his income, he is told that his average for the past six weeks can he stated, and he is required to fill in. the following:— Any other income (children, etc., individual earnings to be stated) : £. s: d. (a) Son or Daughter . . age . . (b) do . . age. . (c) do . age... .(d) do r . age. . (e) do ..age.. There are over 2000 tenants of council houses .at Barnsley, many 'of these being professional and, business men of modest means, whose right to a home, in the abnormal position regarding housing which they found on their return from the war, was recognised along with that of workmen living in other houses. They resent what they describe as an unwarranted inquisition, into their private affairs by the Housing Department, and are returning thgir forms to the Corporation by way of the dustbin.

The Ministry of Health is stated on the form to have requested .the information that■ is sought in connection with a rents appeal, but, as the tenants say, the Ministry of Health cannot confer upon the Corporation the powers of the Income Tax Commissioners. The Corporation, say the tenants, has no more - (right, to such-particulars of a private and personal nature, than! any ordinary landlord, who would, never he so impertiont as to ask for them.'