ATTACK ON SLUMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20642, 14 February 1929, Page 15

ATTACK ON SLUMS.

AN INTOLERABLE EVIL A BISHOP’S PASTORAL. SUGGESTED "HOUSING ” SUNDAY. (From Our, Own Correspondent.) ■ LONDON, December 21. The Bishop of Loudon is taking measures to organise a powerful movement for the improvement of housing conditions in his diocescf. In a pastoral letter which he has sent to rural-deans and incumbents, to be read in all churches, he writes;— "We are beginning to realise that, if it is an* the family that-the good citizen and the good Christian find their actual training ground, then the slum is destined to people England with bad Christians and bad Englishmen; that if the home is the real seat of education, then the slum is a guarantee of ignorance. " Houses that -are absolutely unfit for habitation are as great a danger to public health as food that is absolutely unlit for consumption, and it is for the public authority to- use its existing powers to condemn and demolish them or find alternative accommodation; but the problem has become so vast, so complex, and so full of difficulties that nothing but enlightened and courageous public action will' ever solve it,. and the need of such action is urgent.. Active steps, however, must be taken ere it is too late; our Christian civilisation must be saved, whatever, the expense. NO REAL IMPROVEMENT. :

“ Is it-possible’that a country which could-spend five-millions and upwards a day in time of war can do so little to remove this .' intolerable evil,’ as Archbishop Davidson called it, in time of peace?” In order' that “ Christian sentiment in his diocese shall be roused to put an end to this disgrace,” the Bishop requests every incumbent to read the pastoral letter of January 6, and to set apart the following Sunday as Housing Sunday. A memorandum drawn, up by the Bishop s Housing Committee for the guidance of the incumbents states: —

At the .last census between 600,000 and (00,000. people in Loudon ■ were living overcrowded to the extent of more than two a room, and of these close on 150,000 lived more than three to‘a room. Since then no improvement worth mentioning has taken place in overcrowding.

BEYOND REACH. In London, since the war .and down to a recent date, 150,000 houses have been built. These houses, are, as a general rule, quite beyond the reach of poor tenants; they are inhabited by people of an altogether higher financial status. Housing trusts, and utility societies have in the same time built some 3000 houses; these, on the other hand, are inhabited by the poor. Their number is, however, so trifling that it is idle to look in this direction ' for a solution of the housing problem. No Slum Clearance Bill is to he brought forward in the meantime. This seems deplorable. " EVILS OF OVERCROWDING. “

Millions of money are spent—to a great extent wastefully—on rheumatism and’tuberculosis, winch are typical slum diseases. Prevention would be better and cheaper than cure. Every penny of the. income tax brings in £5.000.000. It is estimated that slums ami overcrowding together could be almost, if not completely, eliminated for a few additional pence of income tax; no estimate either need or can be made of what would be saved in the process in the way of human life. These things are not primarily matters of money, rates, or taxes; they are matters of right aud wrong. The Church of England should take u leading part in securing redress for poor tenants who cannot—because of their ignorance and poverty—defend themselves. ...

Overcrowding is the direct cause of injustice, misery, discontent, degradation, degeneracy, and loss of Christian fnith. Slum landlordism only ■ exists because existing circumstances make it tiumieially attractive. It is not enough to point to the palpable and culpable failure of landlords and borough councillors. The ratepayers—that’ is, wc ourselves —control them both. Wc arc masters of the situation;-