LONDON SLUMS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 May 1935, Page 2

LONDON SLUMS

EFFORTS AT ABOLITION

LONDON, May 11

'file Prince of Wales paid a warm tribute to voluntary housing societies at a meeting at the Mansion House on behalf of the Housing Centre. “Every movement of reform,” said the Prince, “starts with the voluntary worker, and many gfreat movements have ’sprung from the eager work of a lew enthusiasts. The abolition of slavery is an outstanding example. Improvement in ! ti ie housing of the poor is a similar [ object. “It is the gradual expansion of the crusade aginst slum conditions which has largely inspired the public determination to get rid of a shameful thingAn immense amount of building lias bee-i done since the war for the fairly well-to-do middle-class, and, a great deal for the poorer middle-class, because this lias been commercially profitable. With the help of subsidies much lias also been done, especially by local authorities, for the ordinary poor. But for the poorest people lomparativeiv little has been done, apart from the work of the housing societies. “It is because there lias not been much more of such work that the slum problem is still so acute. 'l’his most essential work lias been hampered for the bousing societies not. only by a lack of cheap money, but by a lack of coordination. It is to establish this coordination that the National Federation of Housing Societies has been created.” Sir Reginald Rowe, chairman of the Centre, declared that to say people living in slum conditions would turn a new place into a pigsty, was “a lie;” an easy salve to the conscience of. the bad landlord.”