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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 61, 18 April 1914, Page 8

Mr Asquith, on behalf of the Government, has refused an appeal made in the House of Commons that substantial assistance on a generous scale should be provided as a remedy for the appalling conditions obtaining in the Dublin slums. During the debate on the question, Lord Hugh Cecil accused the Dublin Corporation of deliberately encouraging insanitary habitations, and doubtless he obtained his information from the report of the Dublin Housing Committee, wlncn contained startling allegations. The report was followed by a general indictment by the responsible Press of the United Kingdom of the Corporation, which was charged with not only consciously permitting the terrible tenement evils to continue unchecked, but that by its example it encouraged the perpetuation of slumownership. The report referred to

above told" of- hovels of unparalleled miserableness .and structural degradation, of nearly 28,000 human beings forced to live their lives in dwellings which the Corporation itself deemed unfit for human habitation. "To condemn a child to an upbringing in the Dublin slums is to. condemn it to physical degradation - and to an appalling precocity in vice, ' ' declared the '' Irish Times." The London '.'Times'.' bases its indictment on the fact that the city's worst evils were due to the neglect or abuse of existing legislation. Rebates were allowed improperly to tenement owners within and without the Corporation, three members of

which were returned in evidence as owning among* them some 46 '' thirdclass." houses. The Housing Committee's report recommended a reconstruction of the houses in the slum area, the.cost to be borne by the owners. The refusal of Mr Asquith to give the generous assistance asked is probably due to the. fact that it is the Corporation's responsibility to find a remedy; knowing, as he must, that progressive English municipalities have combatted their slum evils by establishing workmen's dwellings in suitable areas. Town-planners at Home would do a national service if they concentrated their" energies on such a proposition as the Dublin tenements present.