PRINCE AMONG HOVELS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 577, 1 February 1929, Page 9

PRINCE AMONG HOVELS

.APPALLING SQUALOR HOW WORKLESS MINERS LIVE (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) (United Service) Reed. 11.20 a.m. LONDON, Thursday. “Surely this is bedrock,” said the Prince of Wales, viewing hovels at Brandon, where live unemployed miners surrounded by their barefooted children. Nothing appears to have more deeply impressed the Prince than the squalor of the miners’ housing. To the Mayor of Durham the Prince expressed, with obvious emotion, his opinion on what he had seen during his tour, says a British Official Wireless message. He said: “I have been deeply touched by the bravery, patience and hope of all these poor people. It is very difficult to know what to do to solve this most pressing problem. I am sure, however, that thiugs will be righted, but I am afraid it must take time. The people I have met during this tour could not have been nicer to me personally. It was wonderful.” There was a touching incident among the crowd of workless at Jarrow. A sightless old woman pleaded, “Just let me touch him.” The Prince overheard her and asked the crowd to make a gangway so that he could shake hands with her. “HOW IS YOUR DAD?” At one village the Prince asked Sarah Lee, aged :.6, if she would not be happier in Australia. It was, he sai<i, a. wonderful country. He had been there and knew how good life could be. The girl looked across the road at her poor little home and shook her head sadly. “How is your dad?” asked Mrs. Stewart of the Royal visitor, at Seaton Burn, where two-thirds of the male population have been idle for two years. “He is getting on as well as can be expected, thank you,” replied the Prince. “Many of us have been praying for him and for the Queen,’* said Mr#. Stewart. A terrier called “Shot” gave the Prince a lively reception at one house in the sam? village. “Bless you, that is only his friendliness,” said a Mrs. Cooke. “He is a good dog, but I a.m afraid he must go, because I have it* money which to pay for a licence.” The Irince spoke to the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Mr. A. W. Lambert, who gave the woman a ten-shilling note, thus reprieving “Shot.” “SIMPLY INCREDIBLE” Everywhere his Royal Highness went he inquired as to the earnings or the amounts of relief grants on which families were subsisting. His most frequent remark was: “But this is simply incredible!” The Prince even called at small shops and sometimes he made a pretext by purchasing cigarettes to ask how the people were faring and to express sympathy with the tradespeople. He lunched off cold beef and salad at a hotel in the mining town of Ashington. The newspapers are reporting the details of the Prince’s tour impartially and at great length. The “Morning Post,” the most outspoken of the opponents of the miners’ political movement in the past, nevertheless makes a feature of the tour and refers to the “unbroken chain of poverty and distress in the stricken coalfields.” Some newspapers display under double column head-lines many photographs. SPEEDING UP RELIEF The tour of his Royal Highness will unquestionably speed up the distribution of relief. Certainly it will hearten the sufferers. Some of the Prince’s comments yesterday were caustic. He was shown the pay-sheets of a gang of men and observed that it seemed as though they were worse off when they were working than if they were unemployed. When he was told that certain houses belonged to colliery owners and were inhabited rent free, he said that was the best that could be said about them. As he sat on rickety chairs in village houses the Prince questioned the wives of miners as to how they managed to live on 20s to 30s a week. More than once he left cottages with an angry look on his face. It is quite evident that the tour is proving very painful to his Royal Highness. Several times he has had immediate relief given in the way of food or clothing.