THE MINING TOWNSHIPS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10282, 17 May 1919, Page 6

THE MINING TOWNSHIPS

We have another edition to-day of the revelations of yesterday. It would have been better, we think, with all duo deference, if the conference with the complaining minors had been open. The plainness of their speaking, which seems to have greatly impressed the Ministers, would at the least have given some refreshing reading to a public which dislikes euphemisms and whitlings. It would have done more;' it would have placed a strdng public opinion behind the Ministers, who have given broad hints of a strong policy of interference. The acceptance by the Ministers of this evidence is a good thing, and the expression of their determination to take these awful townships in hand is a better thing. The practical thing to-day, however,is the light thrown on this subject. Here we see a municipal system theoretically, perfect applied to all these towns; a Health Department with power to coerce the municipal authorities; and, in spite of all this machinery of cleanliness, filth is rampant! Vested interests have prevailed, in one instance sitting on the safety-valve for five and a half years! And the miners, the most outspoken and independent section of the population, have borne it all meekly for all this time. They never mentioned it in their campaigning manifestoes, and they now come out of these awful holes to plead that they are prevented by these conditions from working 1- -Can we -trust, any--thing'or 'aiiybody in this chaos of multiple failure? Wo can hope that the Government will put the screw on through the Health Department. Wo can hope that they may persuade the miners to supply doctors and nurses later on. We may try to hope that they will now, by some fair salary inducements, secure for these districts some of the doctors returning from the war. One thing we cannot do. Wo cannot believe that these miners who get wages that are certainly- hot bad, have been prevented from working by these conditions they have only brought to the front lately. The whole thing looks like a hopeless tangle of warring heads. If the Government can get sense into all these heads, including the heads of the vested interests, by knocking them together, it will bq well. But the moral of the situation is: “Get on with the electric power.’’