Rise of Slums Due to Wrong Outlook

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 119, 5 June 1937, Page 18

Rise of Slums Due to Wrong Outlook

I ADELAIDE. — As slums go in crowded Old World cities, Adelaide may be said not to have any, but there are spots that even the Lord Mayor, Sir jonathan Cain, admits need clearing up. The Oity Couneil is giving attention to this reform, but the view of the Lord Mayor is that lack of education is at the root of the problem. Sir Jonathan said that while fine and unobstrusive work is being done by many persons and by organisations and welfare societies, these efforts are -not always appreciated by those benefitedd In this opinion, the only really effective foree in slum clearance would * be a gradual process of education to show unf ortunate people that. better ways of living are possible for them. More is demanded, according to Sir Jonathan, than merely building neat modern homes, welcome as that reform is, but the doctrine pf social improvement should be preached from every pulpit until it becomes the watehword by which the citizens are actuated. In discussing slum conditions there is a dispposition, Sir Jonathan said, to indulge in glib generalities, but the time is now long overdue for constructive ideas, and . the first step, he holds, is educational aetivity direeted in such a manner as to change the social- outlook of thoso whose lot had been cast in uupleasant places. * "