DESTROYING SLUMS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 230, 29 August 1932, Page 6

DESTROYING SLUMS.

The report issued last week by j the V estminster City Council, covering the progress made on the Ebury and Grosvenor housing schemes, draws attention to the marked improvement being effected in London's slum areas. The Grosvenor scheme, it is stated, has cost £'431,000, toward which the Duke of Westminster contributed £113,050 and the land: on the Ebury Bridge estate new buildings have been erected costing £157,500. That the occupants of the new fiats appreciate their better environment can be gauged from the statistics relating to the manner in which they keep their homes. These two schemes are but part of the great deal of work that |is being done these days to rid ; London of one of its worst asipects. The Somers Town plan is one of the most interesting, j Recently, a block of 40 new fiats j was opened, the first of a new • building scheme which embraces ; plans for a garden city in miniajture. The mainspring behind I this movement has been the | Magdalen Mission. The chief source of evil in any slum district is found in bad housing and overcrowding, and the members of the Mission resolved that in Somers Town this must be remedied. They envisaged a suburb I of modern flats, where people could live cleanly and comfortably, paying the same rental as for their old homes. This last point was a cardinal feature in their plan. Full of faith and courage, they interested people in their scheme to the extent that a building society was inaugurated and money subscribed in ordinary shares of £1 each and in loan stock. Last year the Society paid four per cent, on these shares, and for the previous three | years three per cent. At first it i was thought possible to renovate j the old houses, but even a neatly j performed job did not satisfy the i the garden city builders, and j they resolved upon their complete disappearance and new structures. The work has been carried out in such a manner that, it was j stated recently, no one has been j rendered homeless. No building! in use was evacuated until its occupants were placed in new and modem flats. The garden city, it has also been said, is an ambitious scheme, but it will be a wonderful achievement when finished. It will include shops, gardens and drying courts, and places where children will play when their parents are at work. There is to be a nursery school built on the roof of one block. Somers Town is a very poor district lying to the north of Euston Station, and like those in other and similar parts of London its residents know few of the joys of the seaside, or of the country, and other amenities which make life happier for some people. But the Mission comes to the rescue. It arranges holidays for tired workers and excursions in the summer for the poor inhabitants—perhaps their only pleasure of the year. In other parts of the world there are movements to ameliorate the housing conditions of the poor. Berlin provides one example of municipal and Government enterprise. Vienna is another, but its plan is purely Socialistic. The modem flats have been erected from Government loans and the dwellers charged a rental sufficient to cover maintenance only, with the object of striking a blow at the private owners. There is no provision for interest in the rents charged. The middle and wealthy classes must provide that by taxation. Hence a reason why, to-day, Austria is deeply enmeshed in a financial tangle. The London examples provide a much better way to perform a community service that is of inestimable benefit to the people for whom it is designed, apart from' the great improvement in the city itself.

A motor car which wss reported to bare been stolen from Greytown on Friday was discovered abandoned, but in good condition, by the Manawatu Automobile Association's service officer at Whaka'rongo this morning. The General Manager of Railways has declined a request by the Pukekohe Chamber of Commerce to stop the Limited express at Pukekohe, on the grounds that long-distance travellers would be inconveniened. and there would be additional cost to the Department.

A kowhai tree on the banks of Lake Wanaka, Otago, has been for many years past a forerunner of spring, and has preceded ali other trees of its kind by many weeks in flowering. It has upheld its reputation again this year and has been in bloom for over five weeks now.

A memorial picture dedicated to the engineer officers of the Tahiti, in commemoration of their fine work when the steamer foundered in the Pacific on August 17, 1930. while voyaging from Wellington to San Francisco, has been prepared for hanging in the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Institute of Marine and Power Engineers.

A report from Moeroa, at the back of Eltham, states that -wild pigs are unusually scarce just now. A few months ago they were very plentiful, so numerous, in fact, as to attract many parties of pig-hunters from all over Taranaki. The persistent hunting combined with the present scarcity of feed have so diminished the numbers that hardly a pig is to be found in the district.

The four Mount Albert (Auckland) lads who, ten days ago. left by bicycle on a tour of the North in search of work, have obtained positions on farms, in spite of the fact that none of them had had any previous experience. Although they took only 3s each with them on leaving Auckland, they were able, by means of odd jobs, to secure shelter and occasional meals until eventually all had found work. It is many years since so little snow fell in the back country of Ashburton as has been the case this winter. Where snow was formerly piled up in the valleys. there is now in most cases only a light covering. On the other hand, there have been frosts of a greater intensity than has been known for years. On one morning recently there were 40 degrees of frost at one of the county sheep runs in the back country, this eight degrees below zero.

Evidence that the Te Kuiti district was once under the sea lied has been found on a number occasions, states aTe Kuiti correspondent. A few days ago when a cutting for a tramline was being put through to a limestone quarry oft the Mangarino Road, workmen discovered a shark's tooth embedded in the limestone. It was about 20 feet below the surface, the cutting passing through a hill. The tooth is in a perfect state of preservation and the stone round it is being cut and polished to make a paper weight. A few small fossilised shells were also found in the same locality. A model of a section of the hold of an overseas ship proved an attractive exhibit in a case heard in the Supreme Court in New Plymouth last week. The case before the Court was an action for damages for injury to a waterside worker. The model of the section of the ship concerned was produced to the Court to enable a clearer demonstration to be given oi the method of working cargo and the way in which the accident happened. It was made to scale, and showed the loading decks, hatch, winches, yard arms, etc., with a sling of timber being lowered to the bottom of the hold. “While ploughing in a swamp at Waipango, near Riverton, Mr C. Anderson turned up several moa bones. Further excavations made in an area of four square feet and to a depth of six feet resulted in the finding of nine big leg bones, a similar number of smaller bones, and about four of the sacral mass. There was also a considerable quantity of eggshell in the hole. There were insufficient bones other than leg bones to make up complete skeletons. The discovery of such a heap of bones in one spot gives rise to the conjecture, says the Southland Times, that the giant birds had been captured and eaten by the Maoris.

The gold which went to America in the time of acute post-war financial turmoil was sterilised, said Dr. H. Belshaw, when speaking to the Auckland branch of the League of Nations Union. He explained that such gold was not used as the basis for credit, and prices for commodities did not rise according to orthodox economic theory. When prices fell, countries had to restrict their imports; and because so many were debtor nations, the depression was all the worse when once it began. Great financial changes took place after the war. America became a creditor, instead of debtor nation, and France became much more powerful in the lending world; but because America was more inexperienced than Great Britain in the method of lending money, financial fluctuations ensued. America did not maintain any definite policy but was at one time willing to lend, and at another refused.

Mr J. 8. Jessep, deputy-chairman of the Unemployment Board, has been investigating the possibility of turning the many thousand acres of lagoon bed at Napier lifted by the Hawke’s Bay earthquake into productive land. He stated later that the Unemployment Board had been in close touch with the Department of Agriculture in connection with the soil analysis of the bed of the old lagoon, which was thought to be a reclamation area offering big possibilities from the viewpoint of being immediately productive, more especially because of its proximity to a large centre of population. Mr Jessep considered that it might easily be developed into a very valuable asset. He said that if the largo area comprising the lagoon could be successfully reclaimed, intensive cultivation would give employment to a large number.