PLIGHT OF VIENNA

Taranaki Daily News, 15 January 1931, Page 3

PLIGHT OF VIENNA

GAY CITY’S DECADENCE. AUCKLANDER’S IMPRESSIONS. " The brightness once characteristic -of lif.. in Vienna has departed, to - those who knew the city in its carefree days it is but a shadow of its former self. Dr. E. Roberton, of Auek-, ' . land, who has been on an extended tour abroad, returned by thp Port Dunedin on Tuesday, and one of the impretSeions he brought back was the sad condition of the once\gay city of Vienna. ... Although. Vienna had faded as a social and musical centre, Dr. Roberton - found that the people of South Ger-’ many and Austria were working hard and "appeared to be far happier than the inhabitants of other parts or Europe. They took life much easier, for instance, than the British peopie. Dr. Roberton said many years ago he knew Vienna very well and was able to note the vast change that had taken place. Vienna, for one thing, had a socialistic municipality, which had embarked on the erection of tremendous blocks of flats for the accommodation of workers. These flats were let at absurdly low rentals, with the result that . th venture was losing heavily, and to make up the losses property owners were being taxed to such an extent that salaried and retired citizens were on the verge of poverty, many being compelled to live in back rooms. While conditions in England were far from reassuring, Dr. Roberton thought the people were better dressed and the children better clothed than they were 30 years ago. One unfortunate development he doted in the provinces, was th' tendency of old families to selltheir lands. * The new owners took little or no interest in the people of the villages and towns and there was a feelino- of apprehension as to the future of countless families of rural workers who had depended on the landed families.