SLUM ELIMINATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23703, 10 January 1939, Page 13

SLUM ELIMINATION

REHOUSING WORKING CLASSES GREAT WORK IN ENGLAND MULTI-UNIT BUILDINGS (Per United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Jan. 9. The great work being done in England in rehousing the working classes by the erection of multi-unit buildings by local authorities, who were subsidised by the Ministry of Health, was commented on in an interview by Dr B. Wyn Irwin, medical officer of health, Wellington, who has just returned to duty after almost a year abroad. The elimination of slum dwellings and basements as living quarters was also a noticeable advance, he said. Flats and apartment houses were the rule in modern building estates, except in the very rural areas. Completely detached houses were rarely seen except in wealthy and oldestablished urban districts.

In the Baltic capitals the position was even more marked. In Stockholm, for example, more than 80 per cent., and in Helsingfors nearly 100 per cent, of the population lived in a large multi-storeyed and gailycoloured apartment ouildings plentifully supplied with courtyards and gardens. Rents appeared to be definitely lower than in New Zealand. During a 10-months’ visit to Great Britain, Scandinavia. Finland, France, Switzerland, Canada and the United States, Dr Irwin said he deliberately avoided the totalitarian States, because their Governments seemed extremely anxious to obtain money from visiting peoples whom it was their aim to destroy. He studied public health and administration, environmental hygiene, nutrition, housing, industrial hygiene and medicine, and in particular modern methods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases.