ABOLISH SLUMS.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17169, 3 August 1927, Page 8

ABOLISH SLUMS.

EFFORTS IN GLASGOW. THE HOUSING PROBLEM. HEALTH OF COMMUNITY. Glasgow, llir slone city of Scotland, has squalid dwellings, just as it has been discovered that Auckland has. The Scotch are a painstaking race, however, and have applied themselves diligently lo the work of cleansing Glasgow of ils slum areas, providing suitable homes for its population, and improving ils bousing conditions. Three years ago a Royal Commission investigated Hie bousing conditions of (lie imluslrial class in Scotland. and Rev. J. Barr, Labour M.P. for Motherwell, was one of those who were aide to become intimately acquainted with tin' subject. Speaking tr. a Times representative yesterday, lie referred to this common complaint of a!! large cities, and said Giasgow was badly congested. Houses of four or five rooms originally had 'neon divided into singic near!men!, homes because it was more profitable to Jet, them as nominally furnished or "fannedouL” bouses. A great deal had been done in recent years lo carry out a bousing scheme, hut proyess had been slow, because most of tl e house-' in Scotland were built in simm. A few composite houses had been set down as an experiment, but the number was negligible, and while they might tide over a. temporary emergency, they provided /no permanent solution of the housing problem.

All political sides were taking up the matter amt the Labour Party bad professed to have the most advanced programme. State subsidies were advocated for bousing, amounting.in Hie cities to a contribution of £'.) per annum towards the rent, spread over a period of 30 years. If Mr Wheatley's scheme was carried out in its entirety it would mean an expenditure of £1,000.000,000, spread over forty years. II seemed a big figure, but was small in comparison with Britain’s expenditure in the Great War. While Glasgow lias some very poor houses, which the people were labouring to remove, i! stood eminently in many forms of municipal enterprise. It had been engaged in clearing away its slum areas at. intervals since JBG 8. The inducement had been to provide a clean city, without, any area festering with disease. Nothing was more expensive to the community than slums.

The progress in connection wilh Hie public health of Glasgow was indicated by the figures, the death-rate having dropped considerably, due to improved (musing, belter sanitalion, air purification and Die provision of public parks.