NEWCASTLE UNEMPLOYED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 25 January 1936, Page 8

NEWCASTLE UNEMPLOYED

LIVING IN DRAIN PIPES sfeN,' S r ALLEGATIONS . ■ NEWCASTLE, Jan. 12. Tlie Delia oi .Newcastle (the very KevV W. 11. Johnson) referring to the plight "of unemployed, in a sermon at Newcastle Cathedral to-mght, said there were meu in the city lnnng in drain

"There are to-day in our land living conditions'Which for thousands of people make the word home a mere mockery, and family life a slieer impossioility." continued the Dean. "Inmost of our cities m Australia there are slums which are a disgrace to a country so young. lu many' parts of the (State there are bag humpies serving as houses for men, women and children. We should he grateful that the Government of New couth vV ales has announced its determination to deal with the slum problem,' and that the Sydney Morning herald has called attention to the scandal constituted by the'fact that at the front entrance to Canberra, the national capital of Australia, there is a group ol shanties, known as The Causeway; winch pass as workmen's dwellings."

Uean .Johnson also criticised, the selfohuess which prompted some married people to avoid the. responsibilities' of parenthood, and .the growing habit of living in the congested, cramped, and gardenless condition of flat life, lie declared that if Australians were content to adopt habits and harbor conditions which." made home life in any true sense an impossibility they had no room to criticise the materialist communism of Russia because of its determination to do away with home life. Inspection this evening of a locality in Parry street, mentioned, by the Dean, showed that a number of unmarried relief workers had turned to use the shelter provided by large concrete pipes, about rive feet in diameter, which iiad been lying idle on a plot of vacant ground. One of the men had built a small kitchen on one of the ends of the pipe; which, furnished with a stretcher salvaged from a rubbish tip, served him as a dormitory. Other pipes were more primitively equipped. The occupants said that the pipes kept tlie wind off fairly 'well, but there was apt to be trouble when heavy rain fell. Tin; men made light of their hardships, and expressed appreciation of conces-sions-made by the Newcastle City Council, including provision of electric light for an adjacent, shed, in which other Unemployed have their sleeping quarters.