The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1927 SLUM ROOKERIES AND RENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 109, 29 July 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1927 SLUM ROOKERIES AND RENT

SCRATCH a Tory and you will find a Socialist! This may be said of tlie Hon. G. J. Anderson, Minister of Labour, who, in the House of Representatives yesterday, leapt back a score of years to the days of his vigorous radicalism in polities, and denounced the blight of slums on each one of the Dominion’s four pretentious cities. Cheers ! It is not exaggeration to say that if any Labour member of Parliament or social worker had spoken on the same subject with similar candour, he would have been flailed by big and little Conservatives throughout the country as a Bolshevik and an unpatriotic fellow deserving of summary deportation. So it is well to have the truth from an administrator who is above suspicion. And Sir. Anderson spoke with authority and from the evidence of his own eyes. While other Ministers were meeting old friends at the races, he devoted a part of the long Parliamentary vacation to slumming among the rookeries and backyards of the cities. His latest exploration was down the slum-lanes of Auckland, hailed proudly as the fairest city of them all. He came, he saw, he was disgusted. The Minister’s experiences as a volunteer slum missionary compelled him to change his opinion about the need and effect of rent restriction. Hitherto, he had nursed the Tory belief that, if the Rent Restriction Act were repealed, houses would arise like mushrooms, and that all the vexatious trouble, about rentexploitation and herding in slums and improvised flats- —most of these a mockery of municipal government—would disappear with morning mist. An inspection of many hovels in ardent townplanning centres taught him a very different lesson. Repeal of the Act, which imposes only mild restrictions on callous landlords and pursuers of big profits, is now declared by the Minister to he impossible. It is essential to maintain the enactment. “I am satisfied,” says Mr. Anderson, “that for some of the houses I saw the landlords should not be allowed to charge any rent at all.” It is not necessary to elaborate the disgraceful details concerning the insanitary conditions of ramshackle rookeries. Enough to accept the Minister’s indictment that many of them are unhealthy, an eyesore to the community, a menace to the public in the event of a recurrence of the scourging epidemic which has not yet been forgotten. Mr. Anderson is afraid of such a recurrence and emphasises that if it come the results will be dreadful. Since there is no doubt about the scandal of housing conditions in city slum areas! it is the duty of State and municipal administrators to provide adequate safeguards. Little good will be accomplished by merely continuing the operation of a meagre restriction of rent. Rents and the prices of property and land in Auckland are higher than in the suburbs of London. And nothing is done by the authorities to make circumstances easier for the poorer classes in the community. It is unfortunate, of course, that Auckland should be afflicted with a stodgy local government that drifts along the line of least resistance, wholly destitute of inspired or even active leadership. What is wanted first is practical town-planning in slum areas, to be followed by a rigorous control of profiteering in residential property.

“LET SRORT GOVERN ITSELF”

WISER counsel has prevailed in the Hawke’s Bay Rugby Union over the dispute between that body aud the New Zealand Rugby Union. Hawke’s Bay has abandoned (for the present, at any rate) its intention of taking the dispute to the Supreme Court, and now proposes to state a case for the Appeal Council of the N.Z.R.F.U.

It is doubtful if any good purpose could have been served by going to Court. Fortunately, cases of this sort are few and far between in New Zealand sport, although within recent memory, one of the courts adjudicated with dreadful solemnity on a bowler’s trousers, and the damage alleged to have been caused thereto on a city green. The present Ranfurly Shield dispute may serve to draw the attention of the New Zealand Rugby Union to the desirability of altering its constitution by establishing its own Appeal Council—or some similarly-constituted body—as the final court of appeal on all matters pertaining to the control of Union Rugby football in New Zealand. There is no room in this country for periodical scandals and notorious lawsuits of the kind that arise from American baseball. The present dispute has shown the need for sport to he self-governed, and the sooner an effective method is found of dealing with any suggestion of an attempt to undermine the authority of the governing body, the better for all concerned. The New Zealand Rugby Union might very well consider, at tlie same time, the question of undertaking the task of fixing punishment in eases where players are ordered off in important Rugby matches. It is little short of ludicrous to find provincial Rugby unions white-washing their own players, and endeavouring to make the referee a scapegoat.

NEW ZEALAND’S DEATH TRAPS

THERE was yet another level-crossing accident yesterday. This was at Whangarei, the scene of the recent doublefatality. A woman was caught by the cow-catcher of an engine, and may consider herself lucky that she was not killed. Coincident with the report of this occurrence is the announcement that the Prime Minister, though stressing the financial cost, has undertaken to consider improving road approaches and to continue steadily a policy of removing and lessening the dangers of the crossings. That is all very well if it h*«ans anything; but what exactly does it mean? With crossing fatalities plunging families into mourning almost every week, the public will want a definite statement as to the intentions of the Railway Department so far as these death-traps are concerned. To make vague promises and at the same time talk of the shortage of money available for such a purpose, when human life is in danger daily, is not at all satisfactory.