HOUSING OF THE POORER CLASSES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14978, 27 May 1914, Page 10

HOUSING OF THE POORER CLASSES.

STRONG PLEA FOR BETTER

CONDITIONS,

THE NECESSITY FOR TOWN PLANNING.

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.')

WELLINGTON. May 26,

In the course of an eloquent address at tho Victoria League meeting this evening, Dr." Platta Mills urged that there was a great deal of work before tho people of the Dominion in town planning and the establishment of better housing conditions for the poorer classes. People were apt, she said, not to-tether"about this subject, because they were used to hearing .such favourable comparisons betiveen New Zealand and older countries. When Sir Wil-

'liuni Lever was-in Wellington he had said to her, "What; do you want town planning here for? You live in palaces." That was ail very well until people -lookea into the matter. She could take the members of the League—and she wished, that some time they would give her the opportunity—to a street where there was a row of fairly goodlooking houses, but if they went down an aheyway, past a dirty stable, tney would come upon a tumbledown threeroomed dwelling, in which lived a family of eight—the mother and father and six children, the elder of whom was a girl of eleven. The hovel, which undoubtedly it was, had absolutely no conveniences, and was sordid to a degree. One tap outside was" the one source of water, and the little girl of eleven had admitted that, except the babies, who were bathed in the wash-ing-up basin, none of the family onjoyed the luxury of a bath. That family was from England. The father was often out of work, and tho others had to go out washing. . Another caso which Dr. Platts Mills quoted was that of a woman who lived in a small house with two children. One of these the mother left in the creche all day while she took the other with .her to her daily work. The speaker had visited lier and found the same sordidness in her house —no comfort, and no convenience. For this "home" she paid lis a week. Next door was the same size of house, and the same sordid conditions, vcith tho addition of a broken-down washhouse with a boiler scarcely bigger thai', a preserving pan. For this the landlord was asking 13a a week. Dr. Platts Mills said she could quote many other examples. "There is work for us to do," she urged, "and plenty of it, and it is with ' such a league as this that efforts in the right direction can bo best organised and bear the most-fruit."