Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, DEC. 7, 1933. SLUM CLEARANCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18265, 7 December 1933, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, THURSDAY, DEC. 7, 1933. SLUM CLEARANCE

Ono of the best evidences of the virility of Britain and of its steady progression towards an era of better comfort and prosperity for its people is the campaign which has been tailncited, the greatest in its history, for the clearance of slum's. In the next Jive years some £7)00,000,000 will be spent in the removal of 210,000 slum dwellings and in erecting modern accommodation for the people who have been living in crowded, insanitary conditions. More than one million people arc to be rehoused, and the work i.s to provide steady employment for 50,000 men, and lo another 30,000 in trades indirectly concerned with the new building scheme. The London County Council ’s part in this live-year programme involves the expenditure of £14,000,000 and the rehousing of 125,000 people. Manchester spends £5,400,000, wiping out 15,000 unsuitable houses, Leeds has au equal number of dwellings to replace and Liverpool, Hull, Stoke-on-Trent and other cities and towns are planning vigorous campaigns. Gigantic though these figures arc, it is claimed that the clearances contemplated in the next ftvo years will eliminate only a quarter of the existent slums that ought to be abolished, but, in the words of Sir Hilton Young, the Minister for Health, the carrying out of

the programme will “break the back of the slum evil and lead to much healthier living conditions.” Whether the Government’s plans are adequate or not, the fact is that the country is alive as never before, to the appallingconditions which exist in almost every large city and in many smaller ones throughout the United Kingdom. The Government has not been idle during the past decade, having already cleared away 20,000 insanitary dwellings,

in addition to which since 1919 no less than 2,000,000 new houses have been erected by private enterprise to meet the growth of population and the new standard of living required by the people. The building society movement has been largely responsible for this new movement for better housing and has greatly encouraged both thrift, and the desire for improved living conditions. This has meant the housing of between eight and ten million people and nearly one quarter of (lie population is now living in post-war houses. In (he vast majority of eases the people benefited have been wage-earners able to pay rents or interest far in exeess of anything possible to millions of very poor. There are enormous difficulties in tackling the new problem, writes a correspondent. The responsible housing authorities are the municipalities. The Ministry of Health, while it can initiate the movement, must approve plans and provide financial assistance on a large scale, has no power to go over Iho heads of the municipal authorities and do the necessary work unless, on request, the municipalities have refused to do so. The first thing the Minister did in his campaign, therefore, was to ask Hie 1717 municipal authorities to submit, plans of (heir proposals. The whole country was plastered with poslers calling on every town and village to take action. What were the results has not been announced, but it

is known that a large number of local bodies have failed to respond from

one cause and another. Questions of

valuation, compensation and the necessity for condemnatory orders all tend to make progress slow. Sometimes it happens that vested interests arc too strong to permit the local council to adopt plans; sometimes fear of injustice to owners of “borderline” property —dwellings considered capable of reconditioning rather than demoli tion —have held them back. In such cases Sir Hilton Young has said that he will not hesitate to deal with “the laggards.” London’s immense area of slums, the correspondent goes on to slate, presents probably the greatest problems. Reports from medical officers of health in the last few years have disclosed conditions which have shocked the national conscience. It is estimated that there are at least 100,000 working people in London living in the 30,000 unwholesome basement dwellings which still exist—although specially condemned as unlit for human habitation. Finsbury and Shoreditch are two of the worst areas. Damp and dclapidatcd hovels, overrun with rats anil bugs, are huddled together in narrow streets and alleys. In Shoreditch, which in olden times was a refuse dump, 100,000 people are crammed into a square mile, half of them living in conditions described as “overcrowded” according to the low official vstandard. In Bethnal Green, and Poplar tut analysis ol 1500 cases showed 22 per cent, living live or more persons to a single room. What these slums are like may be gathered from the following description, “The slums are hotbeds of disease. The stench of vermin i.s everywhere and no form of fumigation seems able to displace bugs from the rotten timberwork. Occasionally rats slink up from the fetid, overflowing dustbins and gnaw the children’s feet while they arc asleep. Lavatories often serve a number of families. The only relief the slum-dweller knows is the cinema or the public house.” This description can be accurately ascribed lo scores of slum areas. The large provincial towns are as badly oil as Loudon. Leeds, which has made great efforts' to tackle the slum problem, has still 74,000 houses of the dreadful “back to back” type, built half a century ago. This typo of house has no back door and no ventilation except from the front. More than 52,000 of the older houses of this type in Leeds go seventy to eighty to the acre. They have a kitchen and one bedroom —no food storage facilities, no scullery, no hot water laid on—and sanitary facilities arc shared between large numbers of neighbors. Yet Leeds has made great efforts to

alleviate the distress of these comli

tions, since the war. The city has built 23,000 new houses in model areas but to be able to abolish all the overcrowded houses still unfit calls for 05,000 more. Health conditions in Britain generally have shown wonderful improvement in the last ten years. The people are better fed; infant mortality has declined the ravages of tuberculosis and other diseases are being successfully checked. But there remains what Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the Ministry of Health, describes as “the canker worm of the slums,” the tool milk supply, the poverty and degradation of millions of people which constitute a constant threat of physical deterioration. These are the things Sir Hilton Young is out to abolish—and the whole country is convinced the work will pay handsome dividends in increased employment, better health and large savings on many social ser-

vices. The Government is- making a good beginning and with the nation

solidly behind the movement it can hardly fail. It affords another example of the fact that Britain, despite depression, now happily passing, is going steadily ahead with vital improvements calculated to preserve the national health and wellbeing.