HOUSES FOE THE WORKING CLASSES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 124, 9 April 1862, Page 3

HOUSES FOE THE WORKING CLASSES.

(Scot.imrin.J Our community recognises as a duty tlio provision Jtfood, clothing, and shelter for the poor. But it .narks oil from itself, by a very sharp line of distinction, the recipients of .such provision. They are paupers. And the man wiio receives, as a matter of charity, from the general community any one of these J&sentials of life—food, clothing, or shelter—is to that extent, whatever it may be, pauperised. Are our working classes, or any considerable section of them, content to be so placed in regard to one of these exsenus-. m that of shelter 1 Do they acquiesce in the tfegg-tegotten doctrine that the general community is oou-.id to provide them With decant ami commodious anelliiigs m town and country at what isconvementh *!«««»!,,*! Were we to believe so, wt a.iomil b 3 compelled to think as meanly of the inielli=l"^' tJle.f '"t. <™l independence of the working J.u,sti .w the demagogues who insult them by assnmpon oi their acquiescence in such advocacy Is the' olass that constantly asserts its independence in re Sard to wages by combinations and strikes to be utlerly dependent on the very class against whom those measures are directed in the matter of rents * Are the champions of the rights of labor to be more or less dependent in the matter of house uccdmiuoJation on the charities of capital ! It sounds as harshly as docs the primeval curse, but lit is as true and inevitable, that every man who aids m providing houses for his fellows on merely benevolent principles, so far aids in the pauperising of those Iks soumvisely patronises. Every well-wisher of the working classes, and every member of that class who Jesires the advancement and independence of his own body, should set their faces against all such schemes as do not recommend themselves by well-grounded prospect ot profitable per centage. The community iias a duty in the matter, but it is not in this direc»iou. Uu the •contrary, schemes got up on benevolent principles, and not resting on a stern and solid economical basis, are so many practical obstacles to the oiilv erne and natural solution of the problem of house accommodation either in town or country The fust question which any real friend of the working classes urged to provide house accommodation for them here jr elsewhere, should ask, is, "Will it pay;" Mil unless he can be answered by facts and figures to'his satisfaction in the aHirmative, his compliance will be about as unwise for them as imprudent for himf lt, *or > by unproiitably investing his own hinds, he keeps back those of capitalists who i>ct .m sound and purely selfish principles. lie deranges the market by bringing in the foreign oUmeunt ot benevolence, and so does far more .°eneri 'damage than particular gooJ. It is as if a sm-ili neighbouring state should send to a country afflicted .vita famine a supply of corn, whicli, though miserably inadequate for its wants, should vet in tht meantime, have the effect of deterring other countrietroui fowarding supplies to a market subject to such disturbance of the regular course of commerce And we speak from practical evidence, when we assert tlm already such ettect has been produced in lCdhibiu-4 oy existing semi-benevolent schemes and societies Foi providing liouses for the workhisr-classes There mo reason wJiy such an object should not be undertaken by companies j but they must act on principles lot profit only ; in so far as they do not, they paralyse ■individual eiturt, and retard the result they seek to promote. J In this matter, as in most others of which the law* of supply and demand are the only safe regulators the -luty oi tho community is rather negative than positive; or, at least, it is positive only in so far as relate. do the removal ot all obstructions to the due action oi those laws As regards house accommodation in towns, the duty of the community, acting through incorporate representatives, should be destructive rather hail provident And it is in neglect of this duty that Jidmburgh has, as a city, lamentably failed H is not that we have sinned, iv not buildup housetor the working classes ; we have sinned in not eon.lonning, shutting up, and pulling down mam liouses still m occupation. Had this good work been carried on, steadily and re.norseles.slv" from yea t year we should have had many more good houses with all modern conveniences," for the classes tint are now content to shelter in the frailest and mo-tin healtliy fabrics. Prcveurpeople miiHiKutfJl4iJßtoUi7fc ~ r . ,' ■f-~<-i—. ——■ course of things their providing themselves with suitable ones. In Liverpool some ton years ago, several thousand families lived ir cellars, which were within the space of a month or two all condemned and cleared out by the authorities -one of the first things that raised the formerly ■shamefully low sanitary condition of the town As Mr. W. Chambers, in a letter in these columns thr other day, remarked, we may empty the town of ali respectable working men by providing better houses tor them in the suburbs, but so long as tho wretched old houses aye allowed to remain, they will alwivs be tenanted. II c quotes the capital remark, 1 hat if you weru to set down in some of the streets iti London a j-0-.v ot empty sugar casks, each cask would be the home ot a family within twenty-four hours. There is no limit to the duty and difficulty of any one class regulating the house accomodatioiis of any other ch'ss We have an example of the sugar-cask proclivity in a speech by the itov. Dr. JVisbet at a recent meeting held in connection with this subject The Rev. Doctor, lamenting the want of decent house* ior the working-classes, s.iid: — " About three weeks ago, a young couple came t: him to be married, and on visiting them at their home he found that they were living in a cellar, accessible only by six or seven steps, nine feet below the level ot the close, and lighted only by four mne« it glass on the footway of the close. These panes of |.4ass, in consequence of their position, were far more orokenthan whole. The place was miserable enough-I ont, alas ! the newly-married couple wore not the' only inmates of that hovel j for in another corner oi t*|e .same room where these young people made their ouirnage couch, slept a mother and two children " Now the true lesion to be drawn from this pathetic story is not that the community should have had a properly-secluded nuptial couch ready for thi* .lewly-married couple, but that the couple should nave prepared their nest before they paired It was they who sinned against society in not pro ■vtthng things honest; not society in not beine. prepared with a comfortable house against their improvident marriage. For if society recognises an obligation to supply suitable house accommodation tor every couple that chooses to plunge prematurely into matrimony, it may at once extend its function's throughout all classes, and so assist considerably in solving the problem that has stopped, as we are told so many marriages, of how to live on £300 a-year' Rent" is as great a difficulty among the middle as among any other class; but they get over it &s best they may, without troubling their neiehbore of the upper class to help them. They would resent the i.iterterenee of any V bloated aristocrats" who should :>neet and pass compassionate resolutions'about the wretched want o/" s-jlf-contained"' houses: we desire -co see a like spirit of independence, and healthy impatience of patronage, in those who bear rather too exclusively the honorable designation of the ." working class," but who, nowadays, are receiving such constant aud energetic pattiugs on the head as to stunt their moral growth.