CORRESPONDENCE CONDENSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14457, 25 February 1909, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE CONDENSED

" Reformer," observing that Servia gives, free of c'tuwso, to any man, 15 acres of kind, which cannot Ixa .wi'zed for debt, sii"."€Bta that smart New Zealand school ho'vu should be given bund free for their parents' use. If every man were given 10 acres of land, to occupy as long.a* he eidi-ivate-d .it, ulio unemployed diliicuiiy would be solved, and where a few perswis own miles of country, as in ilawkc's Bay, towns would spring -up. | Uimwlc gives 160 acres away lo each inning-unit. On the Continent liquors arc drunk, in the majority of cases, under public gax.e at beer gardens anil in open cafes, but in England and the colonies one is boxed up in a hot room with closed doors, and excesses are then the rule. Could we not lake a hint fiom this Continental cttslom, „i.nd have all bar drinking under the publio (jaso. "Morals" sn-gg«te that members of school committees and education beards =hould read two now books on the result of the International Sforal Education Conference, by l'rofctsur Sadler, oi' Manchester University. The opinion commonly expressed at. the conference, he saye, was tltat ethical ion in tho day schools wag nor. complete without definite moral instruction. "T. H." thinks it is disgraceful Hint the Government should discharge so many men from tho workshops and from the Sicsgicl duplication works at in? beginning of the winter. If the double line to Slcs-n-jel is at all nccoesßO-ry it should be pushed on to its completion. The Government look on lots of hauls just before the elections, and dared not then make wholesale <lMini.-.?als. The building trade in this town is about (lend. If a nun pulls down an old house ho yimply fences the section in and plants cabbages, etc. The stringent IsuikliiMf regulations ami municipal red tape and the general want of eonlideuoo acocunt for a lot of this. "Hard Times", treks what is to become of the poor wiio can only pay 5s or 6s per week for rent, of house—old men and women, who through old age can only earn a few shillings per week. It will iiot pay speculators to build houses for them, as' it new takes % per cent, on the cost of building as ;t sinking fund to replace capital sprnr oi ■the building. When the licniWi officer comes round T:i<l condemns the building because he has found a bit ol" roll en ti-ml'.-.-r, and confide rs it to 1)3 insanitary, the owner gets no valuation or say in the matter, latere many years there will I>2 a great cry for these iioir-.es which are now Hug ruthlessly tVcstroycd by the health officer and bis assistants, so that for the future house.-) for the poor will have, to be eroded by the Government and at a rent that will not pay 1 per cent, en the money invested. The cost of a. live-roomed house, '.villi up-to-date appliances and fixtures, •.villi sewerage, would- cc-;t. willi Imx], about £650, ami the yearly expose, in--.•hiding 5 per cent, on cost. ?4 per cent, ■inking fund, city and sewrrage rale, in- • uraiico and sundry expenses, would be £159, or ab-etit ?3> weekly.