ENGLAND'S POOR

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1932, Page 12

ENGLAND'S POOR

MARKED IMPROVEMENT

HOUSING MUCH BETTER

DR. AGNES BENNETT RETURNS

After an absenco of ten months in England, during which she toured extensively, and thus had the opportunity of making some interesting observations, Dr. Agnes Bennett, obstetrician to St. Helens Hospital, returned to Wellington by the Marama from Sydney this week.

In an interview with a "Post" representative, Dr. Bennett said that in England at the present time there was tremendous activity in all directions, political, scientific, and commercial. The Englishman was taking off his coat to the work, and there was no doubt what the ultimate result would be. Among the things she had been very impressed with was the marked improvement in the general conditions of the poor in the cities where she had worked. Housing was much better, and ill-clothed, rickety children no longer thronged the streets in the larger towns. Authorities had power to distribute clothing and other necessaries where required. Butchers' shops were to be seen in the slums of Glasgow, where they had never been seen before. It was recorded in the hospitals that rickets was very rare.

The erection of new and hygienic types of small houses, sometimes semidetached, was a remarkable feature. There were hundreds of these in many of the larger towns, and they were in great demand, the majority being let before the buildings wore completed. They were all equipped with laboursaving devices.

"These new suburbs depend almost entirely on motor-buses for transportation," said Dr. Bennett. "In connection with the London buses it is a novelty to .see big, luxurious machines in the streets of London labelled 'Glasgow, Liverpool,' etc., and an equal novelty to see, them navigating the great northern roads,'over barren moors and mountain passes. They are much cheaper to travel in than trains.

"It is a sad sight in the old 'Black' country to see the number of smokeless chimneys, but some newspapers report that the factories are gradually resuming operations.

"The Faraday Centenary and the centenary meeting of the British Association were two features of last year. It was a great privilege to hear Sir Arthur Keith, Professor Jeans, Mr. J. B. S. Haldane, and many other scientists." .

. Plant research, continued Dr. Bennett, had made great strides, and'the work was being closely associated with medical sciences, and pure sciences. Medicine was benefiting, enormously by physics and bio-chemistry, and from these one might, expect solutions of the great problems of puerperal sepsis, goitre, and cancer, etc.

Koads in England, concluded Dr. Bennett, were wonderful, arid touring was-made easy by a new and excellent system of road signs. Petrol ivas lOd and Is 2d a gallon, so that motoring was fairly .cheap.