SYDNEY’S SLUMS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4597, 13 August 1923, Page 1

SYDNEY’S SLUMS.

LORD MAYOR’S IDEAS. “SPEND TENS OF MILLIONS.’’ “To abolish slums costs money. It means destruction,, and my idea is that this should be preceded by construction. . , It ought to matter not whether the City Council spends a million or ten millions of money in properly housing the people, so long as we can make the houses rentable at fair rents, which will pay interest and portion of a 50 years’ sinking fund.”—Thus said the Lord Mayor of Sydney in replying to a deputation which urged him to influence the City Council to abolish the remaining slums. “We ask you to use your influence,” said Archdeacon Boyce,, who headed an unusually large deputation, comprised chiefly of clergymen, “to wipe out the remaining one-fourth of the city slums. These slums belong to the bad old times—so years back, when people secured legislative sanction to build along each side of narrow streets. We ask you to complete the good work done, by wiping out the blot of these remaining slums, go that our people will stand for everything that is pure, good, great, and noble, and so that our city may become true and honourable.” Archdeacon Boyce mentioned various slum areas which, he said, were contributing to bad health, criminal tendencies, and immoral conditions. He spoke appreciatively of the good work done by Aid. W. P. McElhone as Lord Mayor in abolishing slums. DEVITALISING CHILDREN. The Rev. W. T. Price (St. Peter’s Church of Efigland, Woolloomooloo) spoke of the slums in hi,s area, which, he said, were resorts for criminals an.i immorality. He said that little children, in themselves as pure as the flowers of the field, did not, because of their innocence, realise their evil environment. Upwards of 60 .of these children had attended open-air meetings in the congested lanes. He urged that these areas be resumed, and houses built upon them, so that people could live under better and more favourable conditions. “The children of to-day will be the men and women of this city in 25 years,” said the Rev. T. Davies (exminister of the Methodist Church). He urged that, apart from the many improvement schemes which would have their pull on the public purse, the appeal for the 'abolition of slums for the sake of our children should be uppermost, in the mind of every citv aiderman. CONDITIONS AT SURRY HILLS. Slum conditions still remaining in isolated parts of Surry Hills were vividly depicted by the Rev. J. F. Chapple, whose reform work in that area is well known. “In some places in Little Riley Street,” he said, “as many as ten families live in one house. There are also families who combine a zoo and botanic gardens with a, heme on a narrow balcony. I do not object so much to the pocket-handkerchief backyards,, as if one goes t,c Mosman or Cremorne he will see 19 flats on 60ft allotments, and probably there are no children there at all.” The Rev. D. Brandt (Chalmers Street Presbyterian Church) urged that the City Council should seek powers for the strictest possible supervision of all furnished tenements. He added: “People who have continually to pass through the private rooms of other occupiers soon lack the fine sense of privacy and decency. This dulls the moral consciousness and sense of children,, and as they grow older their moral sense is dimmed, and so they fall into the slum spirit. Where there is no private life, and where people cannot point to a house and say, ‘That is my home,’ there is always a dangerous atmosphere.” THE FINANCIAL DIFFICULTY. The Lord Mayor said that unfortunately the City Council was not able to abolish slums as quickly as it might like. Funds were restricted, and resumptions means money. His idea was that there should be construction before destruction, so that citizens who shall become dispossessed shall have homes to go to. This principle, he added, must apply to resumptions now approved by the Council. The Lord Mayor added that he still believed that the double tenements he had suggested tp the City Council on the lines of those built by the Harbour Trust, could be let payable at 25s weekly. He would obtain a report on the conditions mentioned by the Rev. Mr Chapple at, Surry Hills, and if there was a compact area he might suggest that the Council should resume the land. Street improvement schemes were distinct from housing proposals, and the former not prevent the Council from ■abolishing the remaining slums ; but in submitting propositions to t,he Council he had to convince a majority that they were a good investment to all concerned.