HOUSING THE POOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 74, 2 April 1901, Page 4

HOUSING THE POOR.

A cablegram announced a few days ago that the Liverpool Corporation is spending a million and a-half on the rehous' lg of the poor, and in London the same problem is receiving anxious thought. It is extremely difficult to know how to deal with this -matter, and experiments already made in this direction have not turned out just as people thought and hoped. Still the British Government and some of the larger municipalities arc bravely grappling with the problem, in spite of the cry of some of the teetotallers that licensing reform is more urgent. Mr Ritchie, the Home Secretary, contends that it is better to open new and up-to-date private .louses than to close public-houses. Dur: ig the past 30 years, he said, the number of licensed houses has been reduced by 20 per cent., but statistics show that the consumption of liquor per head of the population is considerably greater than it was some years ago. On the other hand, while the efforts of philanthropists have been increasing, and clergymen of all denom: nations arc banding themselves together to make an attack upon this prevail; lg vice, they have found themselves handicapped by the insanitary and overcrowded dwellings, in which so many of our people have to live. “ We want, more comfort for people in their own houses,” said the Home Secretary, “ and for my part, I believe that the public conscience has been now aroused to a degree never before reached on this question of the housing of the people. It is immensely more important that the housing of the poor should be remedied than that the number of public-houses should be reduced. We also want more amusement and more recreation for the people; and in reform of this kind there is far more hope than in the reforms which the deputation now advocates.” In Auckland the housing problem is not a pressing one, and it is to be hoped it never will be. Instead of having too many people for the houses we arc in danger of having too many houses for the people. They are going up at such a rate that it is wonderful where the people come from to fill them. Yet the fact remains that they arc being filled,—N.Z. Herald.