BRITAIN’S WAR ON SLUMS.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1935, Page 6

BRITAIN’S WAR ON SLUMS.

The appearance of the British Govern-

ment’s new Housing Bill brings to a head one of the most thorough and comprehensive attempts in history to remove the blot of city slums. At the date' of the Armistice in 1918 the • number of houses in England and Wales was a little under 8,000,000. Between that date and September 30 last no less than 2,484,848 new houses have been provided, 788,000 being by local authorities and 1,700,000 by private enterprise. These figures do not include 14,000 houses provided to rehouse persons displaced undei’ improvement and reconstruction schemes pnder legislation before the Housing Act of 1930. When

the decline in the British birth rate is taken into account it will be seen how much improved the conditions are. Certainly there was, and. indeed still is, room for considerable improvement. Only those with intimate acquaintance with the deplorable conditions in parts of the industrial centres of Britain know the magnitude of the task ahead if the Old Country is to be brought up to the standard even of New Zealand cities. But facts speak for themselves, and show that the Government is tack-

ling the problem earnestly. “Away with the slums” has become a political cry of

no mean importance, but whether the policy is political or not it is the results that count. If Britain can carry out the programme on which the Housing Bill has been based she will have achieved one of the outstanding social accomplishments of modern times.