Homes and Hovels of Huntly.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 2, 8 December 1911, Page 9

Homes and Hovels of Huntly.

"MAQRiLAMP WORKER" SPECIAL.

Triumphant Vandalism.

The Fruits of Monopoly. —A Study in Contrasts.-

We, the undersigned members of the proletariat, deem, it to be in the interests of the future historians to put «ri record the repulsive conditions under which the workers, the wealth creators of the twentieth century, arc forced to exist. The following will serve to illustrate how the ideals of the human race are brutalised, and the sorrowful, misery-bedraggled hovels meted out to the producers of that which builds palaces. The photographs are of Huntly— Huntly, the industrial centre of the Waikato, where the workers live whose earnings go to swell the coffers of plutocracy and the State; whose lives are given to minister to the needs of the people of the Dominion. And it must be admitted that were the minors' picks to cease their powerful swing, on that moment the pendulum of the State would slow down and the Dominion clock would cease to chime the- hours of progress or measure ih<? present status of comfort 1 If thetre is a branch of the industrial army which .requires goo;d;. ; surely the miners can makey^at f .daini; justly. Exiled from the fiesli'air, *--'' warmth of the sun, the. .stir.of : the? breeze, the soothing hifluone-e : scape, 'seascape,''and '-sky-. \he drags out a,stifling e^istenoe^|<^^hi ; s* daily bread; Choked witlrismoke?and. coaldust, sweated as few humans are, submitting per force of circumstances to a degrading, bleaching process; in' order to eke out an existence! • , *•'■ And while those crushing industrial wheels are grinding out his manhood, while this wholesale sacrifice-of talent; principle, right-inheritance is exacted, in the process is wealth created, revenue return's ' swelled —in short; ;thetaskmasters' homes made brighter!

relish paying 10s. per week for a hovel and decide to have a house of his own on this vacant laud, he would find that, although there was, an abundance» of. vacant land suitable for the purpose;

What awaits the miner upon his return from those hellish dungeons ? Look at those photographs. We leave them to tell of the hovels! The dwellers in the hovels are reduced to servile conditions. There is littlo of the beautiful allowed them. Tire family which practically monopolises •the township has relentlessly disregarded any considerations the workers may have to live an elevated and bright life Already we have shown how the taskmasters operate upon the workers while at their toil; the same intensified greed for gold is evidenced among the hovels—those miserable hovel!- of Huntly. The Waikato river, upon whose banks Huntly is built, is famed for its beauty and in the early summer possesses fine charms for the lover of Nature. But each beauty is marred by private enterprise. . In England private enterprise has been responsible for the fact that almost all its once bright and limpid etreams havo become fetid rivers, and many fine valleys and once fertile plains Sbave become blasted and made hideous by the foul and noxious gases from its engine fires. But not in England alone are squalor and ugliness found. Where capitalism is there they are also. New Zealand, the vaunted land of freedom, is not without its hell-holes, and Huntly is one of them. Squalid, •ugly Huntly! Monopoly is everywhere, tat-nowhere, .-in "God/a own" as in Btiivtiy. Go across the river, go out on the hills, and the withering, hand ©f monopoly clutches the throat of the worker and forces him to live in rented Ihovels. "There are hundreds of acres of lan/} close to Huntly.. growing ti-tree, . wifene'ed, unused—-arid :; '' to : the : . newcomer, apparently required by no man. -Shbtild the new-comer, however, not

one or two people claim to own it, and •bY .virtue" of that, claim demand a tribute .heyond. the n*oans of the average worker: ■• ,;. -- ? All men believe', in-some things be-in ii

collectively owned —there is "one exception, however, in Huntly, but he. is :i. freak, and freaks don't count —and all communities enjoy a certain measure of collective ownership. Even in Huntly the roads are not private property ■ the post office is not private property, but it is worthy of note that the Government had to. pay £500 for the tiny piece of land the building is' erected It was built as a, twostorey building, we believe, to obviat-;

tie purchase of'a larg4r area - ' -Huntly possesses no park or domain, no•'river reserve, nothing the public may call its own—nothing to-redeem it from its barren squalor. Its ugly, crocked street and primitive arefiitee-

ture. will haunt us years after we have fled from it. The river bank is * thing kpf bottles, anei tins and smells, and is 'private-:, property to-the water's edge— .»' circumstance which does not obtain, |,tq our knowledge, in any other town in ! .the Dominion. I In Ngaruawahia, a noighbouring ; town, the workers are exploited—as ■thfcy are Vliere ver capitalism operates, but they, have: not such ugliness to eairdnre. "The, river bank there is-a public domain and esplanade—"a thing of beauty and a joy for ever." We could -pay a tribute to Hamilton,.Cambridge, To Aroha—but Huntly, O Huntly! must squalor ever reign with thee that

Adjacent is. a .line water-pump. The h'ovel-dwello.rs have to carry water from the river during heat-spells.

some may ' have.'their dividends? O, men of Huntly, -who excavate miles upon mile's of galleries ' deep in the earth, under river and lake, who do a work beside which the pyramids of Ejivnt f-'do. into insignificance, think

what a single day :of your toil accomplishes,, and ask yourselves if rent, profits and dividends are to stand between '■you and the-City Beautifil? , No! the day is not far distant when .we, tho proletariat, shall start fo build 'the Wonder Cities; the like the world has never seen. Soon shall the oppressor of to-day be swept into oblivion, i and likewise ail things that are unclean j aiid unlovely, in the dim and distant |. aye's men foretold the "Golden

A £°>'.' men should plant vineyard s-and eat the fvuitj thereof." The time is at hand! ; X,,E. BUNCAN; ~"..' W. J. PATTERSON. E. HUNTER {• 'Billy Banjo.")